Why is the military moving back into base deep under the Rocky Mountains?

Daily Mail ^ | 4/8/15 | James Nye

[Teflonic]

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is one of the icons of the Cold War - a self-contained and sufficient town buried under the Rockies meant to be impervious to a Soviet nuclear barrage.

It was home to the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), scanning the skies for Russian missiles and the military command and control center of the United States in the event of World War Three.

The high tech base entered popular culture with appearances in the 1983 Cold War thriller War Games and 1994's Stargate - which imagined the complex as a clandestine home for intergalactic travel.

It shut down nearly ten years ago as the threat from Russia seemed to subside, but this week the Pentagon announced that Cheyenne Mountain will once again be home to the most advanced tracking and communications equipment in the United States military.

The shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to safeguard the command's sensitive sensors and servers from a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said.

The Pentagon last week announced a $700 million contract with Raytheon Corporation to oversee the work for North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command.

Admiral William Gortney, head of NORAD and Northern Command, said that 'because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain's built, it's EMP-hardened.'

The Cheyenne mountain bunker is a half-acre cavern carved into a mountain in the 1960s that was designed to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. From inside the massive complex, airmen were poised to send warnings that could trigger the launch of nuclear missiles.

But in 2006, officials decided to move the headquarters of NORAD and US Northern Command from Cheyenne to Petersen Air Force base in Colorado Springs. The Cheyenne bunker was designated as an alternative command center if needed.

[bayliving]

Well, there was a news report the other day about Russian missile launching platforms that have been made to look like sea cans...

If true, it wouldn't take much to position a cargo ship off of the coast and shoot a large nuke high into our atmosphere before we would even have any idea what was happening or why...

I just wanted to add another layer of tin foil to your hat :-)

[SunkenCiv]

Obama's having the place spruced up for the arrival of the Iranian and Russian treaty monitors.

[Steve_Seattle]

"The Cheyenne mountain bunker is a half-acre cavern carved into a mountain in the 1960s that was designed to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. From inside the massive complex . . ."

They've got this muddled - a half-acre cavern isn't a "massive complex." The half-acre probably only refers to one small area of the complex.

[Publius]

Cold War version 2.0.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Well, there was a news report the other day about Russian missile launching platforms that have been made to look like sea cans..."

It's entirely possible that the two stories are related.

[Night Hides Not]

Maybe a sequel to “War Games”?

[Ouderkirk]

I thought the same thing....100’ x 200’ doesn’t seem all that large of a space to me either. Hard to put a “whole town” in that space.

[George from New England]

Want to play tic-tac-toe, again ?

Paging Matthew Broderick ?

[CodeToad]

Maybe this is because there are funds to remodel a facility but none to build a new building and the other facilities at Peterson, Buckley, and Schriever are full? They really could downsize the space programs. Few Air Force do much of anything other than babysit contractors with the contractors doing all the work.

[Gaffer]

I worked inside it in 1970-71. It is much larger. Writer is clearly sitting far removed from there.

[Publius]

"The only way to win is not to play the game."

A brilliant movie where almost every scene was set up to be an anti-Reagan polemic.

[refermech]

Thanks, I think I’ll retreat to my bunker about now...

[Sooth2222]

Why is the military moving back into base deep under the Rocky Mountains?

Because they have been listening to what Obama has been saying, and maybe that means it's time to clean out that old fallout shelter?

[spokeshave]

Too bad they shut down the "Space Fence"

On August 6, 2013, news broke that the commander of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), General William Shelton, had ordered the shutdown of the Air Force Space Surveillance System (AFSSS) by the beginning of the new fiscal year on October 1. This article aims to shed some light on the technical, budgetary, and political considerations behind the decision to shut down the AFSSS. The loss of the AFSSS is not likely to have a significant impact on the accuracy of objects in the existing satellite catalog or the ability of the US military to track medium to large size objects in orbit.

The real impact will be the loss of the AFSSS’s ability to do uncued detection of breakups and maneuvers across a huge area of Earth orbit and act as a “trip wire” to warn about events in space.

Thus, the shutdown of the AFSSS is more likely to negatively impact broad area surveillance aspect of space situational awareness (SSA) than the tracking accuracy aspect of space surveillance.

[BigEdLB]

Psssst! Don’t tell Obama.....

[SandRat]

StarGate soon to be real?

[BigEdLB]

Half Acre 148 feet x 148 feet

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Its a hell of a lot bigger than a half acre !

[BigEdLB]

Half Acre 148 feet x 148 feet seems small for what they are doing