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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."
The stargate program is being expanded...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Let's put it up for auction! This would be a really cool geek house. It would be even better than living in an old missile silo!
I hope they're taking the Santa tracking equipment with them!
"Let's go burn down the observatory so this never happens again!"
Where are they going to move the Stargate to then?
Will WOPR have the same phone number if it's moved too?
Maybe now we can take time out to port Linux to the WOPR. How about a nice game of GnuChess?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Wouldn't be a bad job to be one of the handful of people maintaining the facility. You've got your own underground world that you only have to shave with a dozen othre people. Install some fun tubes, slides, and ball pits, and you've got yourself a cool clubhouse.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
I agree, everything was nicely rounded off end of season 8. But I guess they'll not stop it until it's no longer profitable.
--
It looks like Ill have to find a new place to play bridge, poker, checkers, tic-tac-toe, chess, and global thermonuclear war.
They're clearing it out so when Skynet goes online, John Connor will have somewhere to go and lead the rest of us to victory.
You mean "deep space telemetry" program.
So, if I was a hostile nation that could sneak one suitcase bomb into the US, couldn't I just set it off near the AFB they're moving NORAD to before launching my missles?
I'd kill all the NORAD personnel, and even if they were others it'd take them a few hours to get the mountain up and running. By then the missles will have already flown.
The Internet is generally stupid
Nooo! Wherever will we shoot our 1980's cult films now?!
My fearless leader.....Dick Cheney....keeps telling me how we are in imminent danger of some rogue state, North Korea, Iraq, Iran or terrorist group, lobbing a nuke at us. On the one hand we have the whole "mushroom cloud" syndrome, and now the Pentagon tells me our penultimate bunker isn't really needed any more to defend our command and control center from a "mushroom cloud". Cheyenne Mountain actually wasn't worth much during the cold war when our main adversary had multi megaton nukes. It actually might stand up to the kiloton class nukes rogue states and terrorist groups are most likely to get. So we move command and control to a place where it will be relatively easy to destroy and decapitate one of the most critical command and control centers we have. And we do it AFTER we spend $700 million in a failed attempt to upgrade the one we are closing down. You really have to wonder if the people in charge really are completely incompetent to manage their own affairs let alone those of a superpower.
@de_machina
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.
Na, all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed.
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.
You're going to have to fight Dick Cheney for it. Word is that he's already moved his undisclosed location there, and he'll shoot any trespassers in the face.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=cheyenne%20mountain& ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla :en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wl
Not a whole lot to see.
(Please don't waste mod points modding this up informative, all I did was post a URL to google maps.)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
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
You seem to be talking about Schriever Air Force Base. Interestingly, this is also pretty close by. According to TFA, one of the reasons for the move is the commute between Peterson and Cheyenne Mountain. From Peterson to Cheyenne Mountain is a fairly ugly drive directly through Colorado Springs (the end of that route isn't quite right, but Mapquest doesn't seem to know exactly where the entrance to NORAD is. By contrast, from Peterson to Schriever is almost entirely through open country with minimal traffic.
You hardly need satellite photos. I'd guess some people living near the Broadmoor can probably see traffic in and out of the mountain with nothing more than binoculars or maybe a small telescope at most. OTOH, there's not really much to see -- almost everything is underground, and about all you can see from the outside is the entrance to a tunnel into the mountain. About all you'd see from a satellite photo would be a road that disappears into the side of a mountain with a LOT of antennas on top (though a lot of them belong to the local radio stations, TV stations, Sprint Broadband, etc.)
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
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.
Samantha Carter: Was I naked?(in McKay's hallucination)
Rodney McKay: Partially.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
"Present threats - including those that you describe - do not have that capability."
Actually Russia still has that capability, its somewhat smaller than it was but its still there. One wonders why people pretend its not still there when it is. Russia is making such a killing on their oil and gas reserves I imagine its unlikely they will bother with a nuclear war, but hey a coup and a wacko get the keys, or relations continue to sour, anything could happen.
Relations with Russia are in fact not very good. The U.S. has been treating Russia like dirt since the U.S.S.R collapsed. Gary Kasparov, chess grand master and now Democracy advocates, makes the interesting observation that Putin may be cheering on the chaos in the Middle East because everything that inflates oil and gas prices is a windfall for Russia.
All in all you have to wonder about the wisdom of replacing America's penultimate bunker and command and control facility with an extremely vulnerable office building that could easily be attacked with conventional weapons, a truck bomb or chemical or biological weapons. Cheyenne Mountain was, if nothing else, good for PR and intimidation value.
One question would be where the ABM system is controlled from. If its NORAD, and your worried the ABM system might work, then you take out NORAD first and then open the door for the ICBM's from North Korea.
All in all it just seems like a silly move to make especially after you've just sunk $700 million in to Cheyenne Mountain.
@de_machina
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.
GWB has been won over as a Prior of the Ori.
It seems the Goa'uld are big on apostrophes.
And darn near every other alien race in sci-fi (and fantasy). Nothing says alien like an apostrophe... Perhaps because most Americans' are so unfamiliar with them.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
No, teal is a color. Teal'c is an alien.
Yep. No doubt about it; it's closing down alright *wink*
It's now out of action - nothing going on in there anymore *smirk*
Things sure will be different now that Cheyenne Mountain is ceasing all operations *nudge*
The apostrophe after "Americans" is now doubly hilarious.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I've had the same thing happen to me. I wonder if it's the same moderator...
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
You'd probably be fired if you suggested something like that. And for good reason.
Websites aren't nearly important enough to warrant the huge expense of operating in an underground mountain bunker. What's the point? If there were a nuclear war or some other gigantic disaster, there would be so many other outages and problems, not being able to access a website would be the last of people's concerns. That's assuming there'd even be electricity and computers left to access the web. And you'd save so much money just building a regular data center, you could afford to build another one when things settled down again.
Cool thing to do? Yes. Good idea for a business? No.
Maybe not
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.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
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.
Um, I actually thought the question about "what is the Stargate?" was sarcasm.
Looking at the responses, I'm actually supprised that wasn't the case.
I'll throw in my sarcastic explanation of Stargate anyways:
Stargate is where the writers thought, "Hey lets grab the aging McGuyver, give him machine guns and have him fight Aliens throughout the Galaxy. We can team him up with a buxom science babe (doing a military version of the sexy librarian thing), a Stoic warrior guy like Worf (but with fewer head ridges) and a Indiana Jones type academic guy (but more know-it-all). The whole thing can be done with an ancient Egyptian theme with cool pyramids and crystals and stuff. We can make it all work by using a lesser known gaming system like Tri-Tac's Fringeworthy Roleplaying game. We can do a film, maybe even a series or two, with lots of explosions and special effects stuff, it'll be really cool".
Its not users who are broken, it's systems not taking account their likely behaviour and fixing it technically.
It seems the Goa'uld are big on apostrophes
Those people who stick an apostrophe on every word that ends with "s" are probably Goa'uld sympathizers. Better kill them just be sure.
Now everyone and their dog knows exactly where it is, they've built a new one somewhere that's actually secret.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
...in the 90's when I was an exchange cadet at the US Air Force Academy. They gave us a tour of the place -- it really was quite amazing.
The coolest thing was seeing all the "buildings" in there (yes, it is like a big open cave with buildings inside) mounted on massive steel springs. Also cool was seeing that the main access shaft goes (IIRC) completely through the mountain. The internal rooms are built behind a massive blast door or two (i.e. huge bank-vault-style doors) off to the side of the tunnel. That is to let a blast wave pass right through the mountain supposedly and not just bash against the blast doors.
The most disappointing thing was finding out that the War Room was nothing like in the movies -- it is a tiny room about the size of a normal living room stuffed with computers (no "big board" or giant screens). There are only about 6-10 people working in there at any one time (lead by a one-star general/admiral).
I think you mean Goa'uld sympathizers'
:)
(No, not really)
And, BTW, I am a Brazilian, and while US politics are not always good for my country, I am glad to live in world where the US won the cold-war, instead of the USSR. In the diplomatic world, we need to be pragmatic and I think that's what those canadian leaders being now. Even if they don't agree with all of american external politics, they are smart enough to see that an alliance with the US is good for them.
Your ad could be here!
I'm not a cop so I don't know all the ins and outs of the situation. I do know that law enforcement has a problem with fortified houses and bunkers. They're illegal in lots of places. The first time this came to my attention was when the cops tried to raid such a house. It was part of a complex of row houses and the cops ended up burning down the whole block (by accident) trying to arrest the inhabitants.
g s/evidence/justev16-e.htm
The link below is to a debate in the Canadian house of parlament where the issue is discussed.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/infocomdoc/37/1/just/meetin
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.
I think you mean Global ThermoGNU/clear War.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Ummm... excuse me, they're called "Gateships". You know, a "ship" that goes through the "gate".
(I can't believe I just burned karma on an obscure Rodney McKay reference...)
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
...(paranoia mode on) just constructed this giant bunker housing 200000 people.
Now lets see, do the US AND China plan on something ? (paranoia mode off)
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.