The Nuclear Sponge is a five-part explanatory project by USA TODAY that aims to inform readers about the strategic debate and costs of modernizing the land leg of America’s nuclear triad.

America's 450 nuclear missile silos exist, at least in part, to be destroyed in a nuclear attack. USA TODAY breaks down the ...

Heavier, faster, more lethal, cyber hardened and more reliable are just a few of the attributes woven into the US Air Force’s new Sentinel ICBM, a revamped weapons modernization effort slated to ...

An Atlas F missile like those that used to be on standby in bunkers under Kansas. (HUM Images / Universal Images via Getty Images) Way out in the Kansas prairie, 140 feet below ground, a ...

Way out in the Kansas prairie, 140 feet below ground, a concrete-lined relic of Cold War annihilation has received a literal — and metaphorical — coat of “fresh paint throughout.” It’s not being ...