Posted on 07/29/2006 10:14:49 AM PDT by nralife
NORAD to turn out lights on Cold War headquarters
By PETER ROPER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
Perhaps it was inevitable, once the Berlin Wall was torn down, that Pentagon officials would start thinking about closing the big blast doors at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station one last time and hanging out the “Closed until further notice” sign.
In a startling announcement, that process got under way Friday when Navy Adm. Tim Keating, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, announced that NORAD would be moving out of the legendary headquarters that is burrowed deeply inside Cheyenne Mountain - a granite command post that was created in the 1960s to withstand the heaviest nuclear blasts in the arsenal of the now-defunct Soviet Union.
(Excerpt) Read more at chieftain.com ...
This isn't my particular expertise (I am an atomic physicist, by education not nuclear) but I've read that Cheyenne mountain is no longer secure - that better warheads made it vulnerable.
...just in time for China.
But the word "startling" isn't accurate. The Colorado Springs headline several weeks ago was about that. The article said that most of the functions had been transferred to Peterson AFB.
Still seems that it would be a fairly secure for protection from EM pulses. If nothing else it would be a great storage facility.
Still, I don't see Cheyenne Mountain as some Cold War relic, but as a redoubt, a bastion against encroachment from our enemies. It isn't as though the end of the Cold War meant their extinction. We still need to be vigilant, and we still need our castle walls.
What about Stargate Command? Is it still there?
My first duty assignment in my 22 year Air Force career. What a shame!
See my profile for pic of the blast door.
DoD does some bizzare stuff.
You are correct. High yeild ground penetrating nukes would breach it unlike in the 60's and 70's nations have more accurate ICBM's not to mention bunker busting tech.
>>Still seems that it would be a fairly secure for protection from EM pulses. If nothing else it would be a great storage facility.<<
No argument there - and certainly it should be secure against anybody but Russia.
I'm thinking - great condo opportunity.
That may well be true. I'm guessing that they have a better (if not publicly known) facility by now, anyway.
In another article, it was stated that they could make the complex operational again in an hour. This one says "short notice."
> Still seems that it would be a fairly secure for protection from EM pulses. If nothing else it would be a great storage facility.
Actually its now the location where the media b-prominence, almost-Nobel Price-winning scientists and reasonably important local politicians will hide when THAT WAR starts. Well, at least they got SOME place now.
That was the whole point of the original DARPANET concept. With the internet as we know it now, instead of one central hub that can be decapitated cutting off the spokes.There are now a myriad points of light connected by an elusive web of ephemeral paths.
or by an Air Force Officer on Peterson AFB Let's move to it Peterson AFB
out in the open
where it can be taken out by suicide bombers.
with T/S clearances who hates "W" and all Republicans
Not really. All internet traffic must travel through points where it is routed. There aren't so many of them that a few well placed nuclear warheads couldn't wipe out the internet.
I'm sure the military relies on sattelites for much of its communications but they are setting ducks for killer sattelites now in space or EMPs in space.
Wow, what a career!!
Thanks for your service, Sargent!!
My thought exactly. They only make announcements like this when they have something way better complete and operational.
Sort of like when they roll out a new, hitherto secret, jet fighter when the ones they're actually working on are about three generations ahead of it.
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