NORAD and The Cheyenne Mountain Complex

Hello and welcome back to another episode of megaprojects. I'm your host, Simon, on this one. Basically, I knew about this because I really liked the TV show Stargate SG1 and all the iterations of Stargate. I'm pretty sure their base is in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, but I'm not sure we'll dive this

mountain

, it contains a secret Cheyenne Mountain located in El Paso County in Colorado, it's the site of one of the largest military installations. secret and yet best known in the united states. a place that electrified the imagination during the cold war when the specter of a soviet attack loomed over the united states it was an attack that never materialized but if it had it would have been the north american aerospace defense command

norad

within the

cheyenne

mountain

complex

the that I would have heard it first.

Norad no longer has its main base on Cheyenne Mountain because they had to move for the Stargate people who now operate out of the nearby Peterson Air Force Base, with the mountain

complex

maintained as a backup. Norad provides the United States and Canada with an early warning system for their aerospace sector while maintaining air superiority along their borders in case any foreign missile or unknown aircraft approaches, Norad is alerted, which then activates defensive protocols that we will address later. The military command complex buried deep in Cheyenne Mountain. It has become a legend, countless movies and television shows dealing with the end of the world include it, and even though it is completely out of reach of most civilians, its uses are now far from secret.

A

norad

thing like a gigantic shield. A combination of radars. aircraft and weapons systems that formed the basis of this massive defensive installation Norad was established and activated on September 12, 1957 at the Ent Air Force Base that was once near Colorado Springs, near the Cheyenne Complex, had been Nord agreements reached between the United States and Canada about four months earlier to provide a defensive strategy against any possible Soviet attack, whether with long-range bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles or even in the case of a nuclear attack, this was done through a series of large computers known as semi- The sage automatic ground system by collecting information from multiple radar sites, which was used between the late 1950s and 1980s, was able to compile a unified picture of the entire area and direct a proper response.

The sage was based on the doubt system that had been the first earth system. Controlled interception system used on a large scale that covered the United Kingdom during World War II. He had more than proven his worth and was largely credited with Britain's successful and tenacious resistance during the Battle of Britain. Shire Mountain was not the first mountain that the US had been undermining. In 1957 the US government began construction of a reinforced bunker within Bear Mountain in Massachusetts known as Notch which the bunker was designed to resist a nuclear explosion and from where government personnel could direct a response On May 18, 1961 nearly 2,000 miles away construction began on a similar facility within Cheyenne Mountain where Norad would be headquartered.

This area was chosen for several reasons. Colorado is a considerable distance from both coasts, meaning a missile attack would take the longest, while this particular area in Colorado was the most seismic. solid area in the state, the government was also looking for a strong, sensible piece of granite with as few veins as possible, small cracks that would make it much more difficult to break in an explosion, what they found was that a Cheyenne was ideal, all the The process fell under the supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers, but the work was performed primarily by the Utah Mining and Construction Company.

The Norad Combat Operations Center became fully operational on April 20, 1966, but it was not the only system and command center that would be located deep in the mountain. The Space Defense Center and the Comet Operations Center entered fully operational on February 6, 1967, with an estimated cost of $142.4 million, about $1.1 billion today, between may and october 1966, the norad attack warning system, the combat operations command and the delta one computer system, responsible for monitoring movement in space became operational on January 4, 1967, the national civil defense warning center had also joined the complex, as I mentioned earlier , Norad and indeed most other systems are no longer based at Cheyenne Mountain.

In 2006, Norad migrated short distance to Peterson Air Force Base and the following year Cheyenne was officially designated as a command center. In its heyday, the Cheyenne Mountain Resort housed between 1,800 and 2,000 people, but today only about 200 remain part of the skeleton crew that keeps the resort on a base alert state, meaning only as needed. , the Cheyenne mountain resort was built 2,000 feet beneath the mountain's thick granite, about a mile from the main gate. I'm pretty sure the military doesn't use the term front door, but I mean you know what I mean in case you're wondering that employees need to park outside the complex and then take a bus down the hall.

It's not the kind of place you can really wander around. It is a hugely secure military installation. 2. The main corridor that runs through the The complex has a north and south portal, but it curves to avoid the gold mines on the nearby Colorado Divide. There are 13 three- and two-story buildings within the complex that covers about five acres of land roughly the size of four football fields. Many of the buildings are built just 18 inches from the rock walls and have been designed to resist movement of any kind, whether an earthquake or an explosion, with the use of more than 1,000 giant springs and flexible pipe connectors placed underneath. of buildings, in theory this system should prevent buildings within the complex from shifting more than 25 millimeters and one inch in the event of a disaster.

It is also the only Department of Defense high-altitude facility that could withstand an emp electromagnetic pulse that could come from a nuclear device or small portable devices. The buildings within the complex were constructed from naval grade steel, which reflects impulses while also protecting the equipment within the complex. It has been designed to be much more than just a command center office space in the event of a disaster unimaginable to those within the Cheyenne Mountain complex. He could well be called upon to lead the country's response and that could take time. Beds and suites are available for staff and high-ranking officers.

It also has a medical center, a shop, a cafe, a chapel and a gym, but one thing is that there is none. There are a lot of windows because, well, there's nothing to see. The bunker is designed to withstand a 13-megaton nuclear explosion detonated just two kilometers away and which is around two thousand times more powerful than the one launched on Hiroshima. Inside are truly titanic sets of sounds. Armored doors that can keep a 25-ton blast wave at bay. Most assume these beasts are located in the main corridor, but they actually guard a side corridor leading to the office complex.

If an explosion hit Cheyenne Mountain, it would be carried along the road. The main corridor gradually decreased in strength until only about 20 percent of the original force would hit the blast door. During the Cold War, the threat level was such that one door always remained closed. Those who moved among them had to wait patiently for a door to open. be completely sealed before the other could be opened it was not until 1992 that the decision was made to keep both doors open permanently and, apart from daily checks, the only time both have been closed since then was shortly after the terrorist attacks of the September 11, 2001.

Blast valves are included throughout the complex with a variety of filters that can detect and capture chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear contaminants. A fire station sits outside the complex with employee parking, which is perhaps a little strange considering what's inside. There are also numerous recreational facilities. outside, including picnic areas at Mountain Man Park, a racquetball facility, a softball field, a sand volleyball court, a basketball court, and a putting green, perhaps they wanted to add a degree of normality while constantly dealing with threats that could end the world. I don't know, everyone needs recreation, even If you're inside a bunker designed for the end of the world, sometimes you'll want to get out of the world that doesn't end every day, as you might imagine in an underground bunker you might have to direct a response to the end of the world.

All over the world, the complex is not completely dependent on the national grid system. The bunk has its own power plant along with a sealed diesel tank behind a closed wall. It also has independent heating, cooling and water supply systems. All this is maintained by the 21st mission. support group a ground based missile warning and space control wing that keeps all of the above running with 99,999 reliability so I mean no pressure guys. Mission Support Group 21 has even categorized potential threats to the complex and, starting with the least serious, they are medical. emergencies natural disasters civil disorder a conventional attack an electromagnetic pulse attack a cyber or information attack a chemical or biological or radiological attack an improvised nuclear attack a limited nuclear attack and a general nuclear attack water produced by springs in nearby mountains exceeds more than what the complex ever needed and 5,700 cubic meters provide additional support that is more than double the water contained in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

A second tank with a capacity of 17,000 cubic meters is used as a heat sink. This is a thermal conductor that maintains lower temperatures within the complex by transferring heat emitted by all computer hardware in liquid form Cheyenne Mountain and the systems and command centers it once housed underwent numerous improvements over the years in 1979 the

cheyenne

mountain complex upgrade program system 427m a consolidated cheyenne mountain upgrade program for a command center space space and ballistic missile functions became fully operational. They had been developed using new software technology and would use computers with high processing power. The 427m system was designed to compile multiple databases.

Rapidly improve online viewing capabilities while greatly accelerating processing and transmission time for the mission. warning information in the mid-1990s a $1.7 billion $2.8 billion renovation program was launched for cheyenne mountain the missile warning center would receive a $450 million upgrade in 2000 the integrated command and control system of the combatant commander began the ccic2s program that would upgrade all mission systems within cheyenne mountain as part of a contract with lockheed martin a portion of this system to modernize the attack warning system cost today $700 million billion dollars and It ran from 2000 to 2005. The 18-month process to move the command center operations at Peterson Air Force Base was completed on May 13, 2008.

There is now no rad in a basement beneath the base, Much less glamorous, to be sure, but maybe the world has changed enough that we don't need giant nuclear bunkers hidden inside. mountains, the new base costs less and apparently the process works much more efficiently at the air force base, it's just a lot less cool, the shire assembly complex now uses only 30 percent of its available space and only sees the five percent of its original number of employees. It's still used for on-site training and certainly, if you ever need to emphasize the importance of the job, showing new employees an underground bunker will probably do the trick or just speculating here, they had to move the Stargate program there and the other guys had to move not really, but that's not the end for Cheyenne Mountain in 2015, Admiral William e Gortney, commander of Norad, announced a 700 million contract to move weapons systems into the bunker once again to protect them from electromagnetic pulse attack.exactly specific about what would be inside, but it's clear that Cheyenne Mountain still provides the kind of overall protection that few, if any, places can offer.

Now we've made some videos here about megaprojects that have touched on the uncomfortable fact that the world seems to have been on the brink of destruction on an alarming number of occasions, whether it was American planes crashing with nuclear weapons on board or of a Soviet nuclear submarine in dangerous circumstances, we have come close to a nuclear accident or war more often than you. I guess on three separate occasions things went wrong with the norad system on 9 November 1979, simple human error meant that a test tape was loaded without that little switch that says the test was changed, the result was a stream constant of false warnings that ultimately led to the continuity of the government order, which essentially are the set of procedures that the government must carry out in the event of a catastrophic event, command posts around the world were notified, but fortunately the The situation was quickly brought under control on June 3, 1980, and on June 6, 1980, a failure in a computer communications device sent warning messages to U.S.

Air Force command posts throughout the world, informing them that a nuclear attack was underway and, for a moment, imagine the poor souls who read that warning for the first time, the results were a little different. Pacific air forces concentrating in the Pacific region launched their aircraft along with nuclear weapons in accordance with the protocol for such an event; However, the strategic air command that was primarily focused on a threat of nuclear attack did not do so because they were sure it was a false alarm, a response that eventually led to Sac being criticized for not following procedures as I mentioned above, such Perhaps we will no longer be so afraid of nuclear war that we would dig deep into the mountains and make sure that only one of the almighty blast doors is open.

At a time when we still, of course, fear nuclear war, it has begun to disappear from our consciousness today we think of cybercrime, fake news, global pandemic, the Cheyenne mountain complex is a wonderful fossil from a bygone era when nuclear war was not just a theory. but it is quite likely that children in American schools participated in the drills. There's something wonderfully James Bondesque about this bunker, an intriguing engineering masterpiece built around the frankly horrible concept that one day we might get angry enough to destroy the entire planet. Places like the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. They are extraordinary, but they send a little chill down the spine, it is a testament to the absurdity of the human race, but also to our invincible drive to survive and keep fighting, so I really hope you found the video interesting, if it is so please crush. that like button below don't forget to subscribe too as always if you have a suggestion for a future mega projects video leave it in the comments below upvote the ones you like.

I often look there for new topics to cover, so please do and thanks for watching