Slashdot Mirror
Cheyenne Mountain Shutting Down
WilliamSChips writes "The United States military has announced that they are shutting down the facility at Cheyenne Mountain, home to the high-tech NORAD which tracks every object in the sky. NORAD's operations will be moved to the nearby Peterson Air Force base. The mountain facility is being placed on standby in case they need it again." From the article: "The Cheyenne Mountain center, at the eastern foot of the Rockies near the base of Pikes Peak, was constructed underground in the mid-1960s. Fearing nuclear attacks at the time, the United States built sites such as the Cheyenne Mountain complex. The Navy prepared a floating White House aboard the communications cruiser USS Northampton, in case the president needed to be evacuated from U.S. soil. Another protective bunker was created near White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., for members of Congress."
I am sure some narcistic, evil doctor would be very interested in acquiring a cave of his own (raises pink) muhahaha !
Or, on a more serious note, we could just make a nice secure colocation facility there, beats Sealand or something like Virtu (and there are more like that)...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
It seems to me as if this facility has outlived it's usefulness anyways. It's not so much a "secret" facility that few people know about, rather it's security comes basically from the fact that it's in a mountain. If some country wanted to attack us, all it would take would be to rain a couple nukes down on that mountain and it's out of commission. I'd like to see the work that this facility handles be moved to a top-secret location, it's simply too important to be common knowledge anymore. In actuality, it's probably one of the top 10 targets in a first-strike against the US -- and I think slapping it into some office building at an airbase is strategically irresponsible.
In a recent documentary, one of the producers of Stargate said that, in the real Cheyenne mountain, there's a door with a sign that says "Stargate Command", but that it's actually just a broom closet.
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
Same reason the US military is in the UK. NORAD is like NATO. It s a multi-national organization. The US and Canada joined together to defend North American from attack from the USSR and China.
I have run into flight crews from the UK, Australia, and Norway at US bases. There are many military personal from other countries including countries in Europe in the US all the time. UK subs pick up their Trident Missiles from a joint US UK stockpile at base in the US. They are then fitted with UK made warheads.
You didn't really believe all that propaganda that military cooperation between the US in other countries was totally one sided did you?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Cheyanne Mountain is in Colorado Springs near Ft. Carson. and about an one hour and fourty minutes away from Pike's Peak (by car).
No one of consequence
The disposal of one of our local bunkers made the papers a while ago. The bunker would be useless in a nuclear war. On the other hand, it would provide a real problem for the local police if it got into the hands of the Hell's Angels or someone like that. The bottom line was that there was no way the bunker was going to end up in private hands.
As stated: NORAD == *North American* Aerospace Defense
Canada was involved from the beginning. As a matter of fact there is a Canadian counterpart to Cheyenne Mountain near North Bay, Ontario. It is buried about 200 metres into the solid granite of the Canadian Shield bedrock which makes up the geology of the area. There are American military personnel permanently working there, just as Canadian military work in Cheyenne Mountain.
The likely attack of Soviet bombers or missiles is over the pole. This was especially true during the late 1950's (when NORAD was formed), and probably continued to be the direction of most threat during the cold war. So most of the radar stations watching for this are in Canada. The famous early version was the DEW line (Distant Early Warning) of radar stations.
SCARY FACT!!!: Canada once had NUCLEAR TIPPED BOMARC ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILES to be used against Soviet bombers in the event of war. They were a purchased in part to move them further north (so that when they exploded after firing at Soviet bombers, it would be in the Arctic instead of say, over Winnipeg, Calgary or Edmonton if they were fired from the U.S.A.) and as an additional replacement for the ignorant John Diefenbaker's incompetent handling of Canada's defense when he canceled the Avro Arrow (a very advanced intercepter fighter whose speed was projected to eventually top Mach 3 and had the first fly-by-wire avionics).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Glad to be of service. (I'm the submitter. I originally had "But the real question is: What will happen to the SGC?" but Zonk edited it out.)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
#>mput *.moviehumor
#>put "Shall... we... play... a... game...?"?
#>y
#>Sorry Dave, can't do that right now...
But seriously... why would the government/military choose to put it on "warm standby" just now? Is it just budgetary?
Sometimes shutting down stuff saves money, yes... but sometimes the costs aren't readable in print on a budget page...
A Passionate Independent Musician
There were two ships, the Northhampton and the Wright. One was always at sea while the other was in port. I was on the USS Wright for a couple of years and it was a pretty cool place to be if you had to be somewhere in the Navy. During our 2-week cruise we would sail to some vacation resort (St. Thomas, St. Croix, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, etc) and tie up for a week. That was our "cruise". See, it carried so many top brass that us peons had it pretty good too - THEY didn't want to paddle around for 2 weeks at a time, so we always put in at some really nice port along the eastern seaboard. Captain was even nice enough to let us bring our motorcycles along. Like at San Juan, we had to report in at 8AM for a roll call, then we got on our bikes and toured the island until the next morning. The ship though, was something else. It was a converted aircraft carrier with a humongous antenna farm on the flight deck. The entire rear section of the ship was a powerful VLF transmitter, with vacuum tubes taller than I am. Each stage of the transmitter was in its own compartment (like the "Pi Network Room" sign on the door). They had this helicopter with twin interlocking blades (no tail rotor) that hauled a cable to 10,000 feet for the VLF antenna - the most powerful VLF transmitter in the world at that time (talking about ERP). All the pilot did was take off and land, as it was flown from the ship most of the time it was airborne. Most of the ship was off limits to everyone I knew, and all I did was calibrate & repair electronic test equipment. Ever see the bow of a carrier underwater? Like they say, it's an adventure. :)
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
because if there ever is a major thermonuclear conflict you need to have a functioning chain-of-command, so that there will be someone capable of saying "stop". Matter of fact, in an all-out war between two or more nuclear superpowers the last thing you want to do is knock of the enemy's leadership early in the game: if they have no way of surrendering (meaning: ordering their missile commanders to stand down) things can go from terrible to terminal.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Actually, it always bugged me that the TV series put the Stargate in Cheyene Mountain. If I remember the movie right, it was in an abandoned missle silo in North Dakota. Which made a lot more sense storywise — why locate such a secret operation in a base where thousands of people work? But of course, to make Vancouver look like Colorado Springs, you just have to avoid getting the Fraser River in the background. Lot harder to make it look like Grand Forks.
The US and Canada joined together to defend North American from attack from the USSR and China.
On 9/11 all air traffic in the U.S. and Canada was grounded simultaneously. The next day the Prime Minister of Canada was asked by a reporter how soon flights in Canada would resume. He answered simply, "I don't know. The air space belongs to Norad."
Under joint North American defense treaties, Canadian military officers participated in the second Gulf War even though the same Prime Minister had explicitly refused to join the coalition. At the time, the U.S. ambassador to Canada observed that more Canadians participated in the war than 90% of the countries that formally supported it.
There was even a treaty signed recently that allows U.S. and Canadian forces to cross into each other's countries without any formal invitation under certain emergency conditions.
It appears that behind the public posturing about sovereignty and national identity, the defense of North America takes priority over everything. Some people will find that fact comforting and others find it alarming.
An actual piece of equipment was issued the asset tag WOPR-{numbers}....
It's a transformer located in a alcove in a back corridor.
I've seen it and some wag reprinted the asset tag with 24point type.
I was stationed in NORAD in the mid '80s, so it may no longer exist.
But you're forgetting about the principle of sunk cost.
Hypothetically, if we've spent $700 million to upgrade a facility in the past, this is no reason to spend much more to maintain that facility in the future when cheaper alternatives exist now. I can imagine that keeping Cheyenne properly stocked is an expensive proposal when compared with the new plan. If a cheaper proposal exists that suffices present needs, then it should reasonably be used.
In any case, Cheyenne is not entirely deactivated, just temporarily moth-balled against future needs. We can't get back the $700 million already spent on upgrades, so why should we continue to pay more into the future simply because we've made an investment?
I'd agree that Russia is not completely out of the picture, however the odds of a Russian missile launch now are much lower when compared with other threats. In any case, one could reasonbly assume that a political development of the type you describe would occur with enough time to anticipate the potential problem and reactivate Cheyenne. From a brief look around, it does not appear that ABMs are controlled from Cheyenne, either, although their forward control is listed as being in Colorado Springs (near Cheyenne).
In any case, thanks for pointing out some faults in my original post. I failed to elaborate.
The TV series is the cover for the real SGC
(if anyone discovers the real SGC and tries
to expose it, the military just points to
the TV series and claims the person is
delusional). No one watches SG-1, it is
on cable.....
There's a really cool derelict facility about an hour north of Great Falls Montana. It's in the middle of stinking nowhere but the place is HUGE. The part that's above ground has steel-reinforced concrete about 5-6 feet think with rebar about 3 inches in diameter. Rumor has it that there are numerous subterrainean level but there isn't any exposed access.