Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
At 60, NORAD still tracking threats
Outpost now monitors terrorism, cyberstrikes
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN AIR FORCE STATION, Colo. — A quarter-century has passed since the end of the nuclear standoff between the United States and the former Soviet Union, but the famous U.S. military command center inside Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain is still alive, tracking new threats from new enemies.
The U.S. blasted a warren of tunnels out of the mountain’s hard granite in the 1960s so officers of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, could survive a nuclear attack.
Although NORAD called off its “nuclear watch” in 1992 after the Soviet Union disintegrated, Cheyenne Mountain still teems with electronics and personnel watching for terrorist attacks and cyberassaults.
Saturday was the 60th anniversary of NORAD, a unique bi-national command created by the U.S. and Canada to protect both nations.
The bunker lies 2,000 feet under Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. It can be sealed by two giant, concrete-and-steel blast doors, each 3½ feet thick and weighing 23 tons.
“We like to say it’s the most secure facility in the world,” said Steve Rose, deputy director of the base.
The heart of the complex is a grid of six tunnels up to 40 feet wide and three stories high. They hold 15 connected buildings made of steel plates, riding on massive coil springs to absorb the shock of a nuclear blast or earthquake. The granite and steel also protect electronics from destructive pulses of electro-magnetic energy that nuclear explosions produce.
Asked whether Cheyenne Mountain is vulnerable to modern nuclear warheads, Rose said, “I don’t think we would be open if it was,” he said.
The military put NORAD in Colorado because at the center of the continent it is far from Soviet bases and missile launchers, said Brian Laslie, NORAD’s deputy historian.
The first command center was at the now-decommissioned Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. By the early 1960s, it was clear Ent would not survive a nuclear attack, so work began on burrowing into the mountain, Laslie said.
The room is surprisingly small, about 40 square feet. Eight big video screens line the walls. Soft lighting, muted colors and sound-muffling surfaces give it a hushed, somber feel.
In 2008, the military opened a bigger command center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, saying Cheyenne Mountain was costly to run and that the primary threats at the time, North Korea and Iran, did not have missiles capable of reaching Colorado.
Cheyenne Mountain became the alternate command center, but operations regularly return there for a few days at a time to make sure the room and its staff are ready in the event of a crisis.
Rose, the base deputy director, rejected the notion that Cheyenne Mountain is a relic.
“Couldn’t be farther from the truth,” he said, noting the mountain is fully occupied by a permanent NORAD contingent as well as commands for cyber, intelligence and space surveillance.
NORAD also is known worldwide for its “NORAD Tracks Santa” operation, fielding calls from children on Christmas Eve asking where Santa is. The operation has always been run out of Ent or Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, never Cheyenne Mountain, Laslie said.