Geek Gestalt

On the left is the BGAN mobile satellite modem CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman used to get online from the middle of a national forest in Wyoming during Road Trip 2009.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

LAKE GRANBY, Colo.--The question was: is it possible to set up a functional workspace deep in the wilderness?

That's what I set out to do, as one of my last goals of Road Trip 2009. I planned on driving well into the mountains of southern Wyoming to see if I could get some work done far from any modern communications infrastructure.

To that end, I ended up driving south from Rawlins, Wyo., and headed into the Sierra Madre mountains, not far from the Colorado border. However, the campground there that I had intended to try out had been stripped bare of any trees as part of a program to try to manage a pine beetle epidemic that has plagued millions of acres of forest throughout the West.

Hoping for some shade, I abandoned the Sierra Madres and drove east, where not that far away are the Medicine Bow mountains. After trying out a few campgrounds, I settled on a wonderful, small U.S. Forest Service campground called Lincoln Park, where I was able to snag a sweet little shady spot alongside a creek.

The real question, though, was whether it had a clear view of the southeastern sky. That would be crucial for using the Inmarsat BGAN satellite modem I was depending on for getting online. Other parts of my experiment, including being able to print wirelessly with the HP Officejet H470 printer I was testing out (see video below), didn't require any particular kind of location, but if I had any hopes of being able to do research or file stories, let alone photographs, I'd need to be able to get online.

Cell service in the forest?
My first attempts at using the BGAN at Lincoln Park didn't go well. Despite there being a small stand of trees just to the southeast of me, the device seemed to indicate it was getting a strong signal. Strong enough to get online, at least. And at first, it did connect, albeit only enough to run an instant-message application. I couldn't get it to load a Web page, access e-mail, or do anything requiring any real bandwidth.

I was a little panicked because I had a deadline to meet and wasn't sure what to do.

Bemused at seeing a camper pounding away at a computer, a pack of tech gadgets nearby, the campground host came by to see what I was doing. When I told him, and said I was having trouble getting online, he pointed out that only about three miles away was a small bar and grill with Wi-Fi. It was after 9 p.m., so it was closed, but I decided to see if I could grab a little of the place's signal.

It turned out to be called The Place, and while they were closed, I got permission to sit in their parking lot and use their Wi-Fi. So for that first night, I was able to get my story and photos out, despite the frustratingly slow speed of the connection.

When I got back to camp, I was quite tired, so I retired to my tent. I pulled out my iPhone to set an alarm for the morning, and as I did, I noticed it had a signal. Indeed, I was able to make a phone call right from my tent in the middle of the forest. Who knew?

In fact, I was awakened the next morning by the phone ringing, a wholly unexpected development.

Getting BGAN working
Things were a little more relaxed now, as they should be in the woods. But I still had work to do, and assuming that I wasn't going to be able to get the BGAN to work, I drove back to the bar and grill and this time sat down inside and worked for a couple hours. However, this was definitely not what I had wanted out of this experiment.

I went back to the campground and, taking advantage of the cell phone service, I called my contact at Inmarsat to see if there was something I should be doing differently to get the BGAN working. We went through a series of diagnostics, but everything seemed like it was correct. The one thing I should do differently, he said, was try connecting BGAN to my computer while the laptop was shut down.

The advantages of working in the wilderness: stunning views of the Rockies, as seen from Lake Granby, in Colorado.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

I tried that from a picnic table not far from my site--this one had a clear view of the southeastern sky--and voila! There was the Internet. It wasn't as fast as I had hoped, but it worked, and I was able to get done most of what I needed to.

Another part of the experiment was to see if I could make phone calls from the forest using the Iridium 9555A satellite phone I had with me. Frustratingly, this really seemed inconsistent, just as it had been earlier in the trip when I'd tried to use it. I've used Iridium sat phones on previous Road Trips, so I wondered if I was doing something wrong. But I had a very clear view of the southern sky, the antenna was up and the signal seemed to go in and out. I got a call through, but it was not an ideal experience.

Moving on to Colorado
I had wanted to try this mobile office experiment in a couple of different places, so I set out in search of another campground. After a wonderful drive through Rocky Mountain National Park, I ended up on a hilltop at a campground overlooking Granby Lake. Tall Rocky Mountain ranges were visible in every direction, and the lake itself was absolutely stunning.

But true wilderness this was not. For one thing, I had four bars of Verizon's EV-DO signal. That meant that I could sit at my campsite and work without having to deal with any potential BGAN problems. Not that I had any when I tried out BGAN again, just to make sure I really knew what I was doing with it.

Still, I was fully off the grid. Well, as off the grid as you can be and still have enough power to last for a couple of days of rather heavy computing needs. And that meant that at Lake Granby, and in the Wyoming wilderness, I had had to plug my various devices into the Audi Q7 TDI I've been driving on Road Trip to recharge.

Ultimately, though, I'd say that while there were some false starts and some cheats--relying on a bar and grill's Wi-Fi isn't really the same thing as setting up a mobile office in the woods--the experiment was a success. I proved (to myself, at least) that it was possible to work deep in the woods.

And while I'd rather have been relaxing that whole time, I had work to do. But it was nice to be among the trees and creeks and lakes for a few days instead of in motels and on the road.

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

Inside the control room at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. Thought to be one of the most powerful and important megachurches in the United States, its lead pastor says that if churches don't embrace new technologies, they'll be left behind.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--If you're in charge of what is thought to be one of the most powerful, influential and important megachurches in the United States, if not the world, how do you make sure that your message is reaching the largest possible audience?

To Brady Boyd, the lead pastor at the New Life Church here, the famous, 10,000-plus member nondenominational church that's directly across Interstate 25 from the Air Force Academy, the answer is technology.

It's not that the New Life Church is light years ahead of anyone else--in fact, it may well even be slightly behind some other churches--but to Boyd the key is that he and his large support team are philosophically open to technology.

As part of Road Trip 2009, I stopped in at the New Life Church for an interview with Boyd. I wanted to know how this megachurch uses technology, and just how important tech is considered. The short answer? A lot.

"Churches have to stay current. We're in the communications business," Boyd told me. "The whole purpose of a church is to communicate a message of truth....We have to stay informed and we have to realize that most of the world is rapidly advancing in their ability to communicate."

In particular, Boyd pointed to Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook and Twitter. He said, in fact, that he Twitters constantly and recently maxed out his number of friends on Facebook.

"Advancing with the culture"
It may surprise some who think of churches as musty, behind-the-times institutions that a place like New Life Church, as well as others, are putting so much emphasis at staying on top of Web 2.0 and other technologies.

Indeed, Boyd even alluded to that point himself, suggesting that there are plenty of pastors out there who have fallen behind the times.

"Pastors have to embrace this," he said. "It's a generational gap. A lot of pastors over the age of 50 cannot embrace it, and they have stopped advancing with the culture. I think it's a mistake."

Boyd said it's crucial that someone in his shoes listens closely to what's going on in the world of communications, especially as that world is evolving so quickly. To that end, he said, he has people who give him monthly updates on where technology is going so that he, and New Life Church, don't fall behind.

The New Life Church, in Colorado Springs, Colo.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

One technology Boyd is fond of is podcasting, a medium he has been using to gain a global following of tens of thousands of listeners.

"I have to be aware, when I'm speaking, that I'm not just speaking to the people in front of me," Boyd said, "I'm speaking to people from all over the world, from various cultures, who are going to be listening to me through this Web technology."

But producing such podcasts--both audio and video--is expensive, and Boyd said that worrying about such costs may be another thing holding some churches back.

"It's very expensive, so I think what happens with churches sometimes," Boyd said, "is that because technology is so expensive, churches sometimes stay put. They stop advancing, because cost-wise, it's just so difficult to keep up with the latest technology."

He pointed to the costs of converting New Life Church's video cameras from analog to digital. He said that operation was extremely expensive, and had to be done piecemeal, over time. In addition, the church recently added a 70-foot high-definition screen to the back of its sanctuary that cost more than $100,000, something that had to be planned and budgeted for.

During big events inside the New Life Church, the atmosphere is much like a rock concert--and sometimes it is a rock concert.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Next up, he said, will be getting to the point where every New Life Church event is live-streamed to the Web. Other churches, he admitted, have already gotten there, so he knows he has to play a little catch-up.

And while an institution like New Life Church, which has thousands of congregants and visitors from all over the world, may be able to afford such a move, that's not necessarily true for other churches, even ones that fall under the category of megachurch.

"Especially in the economic downturn," Boyd said, "I think churches are challenged" with keeping up technologically.

And there's no time to waste, he suggested. Churches, he reiterated, are in the business of communications, and cannot allow themselves to stop spreading their message, no matter what the economic circumstances are. "We have a message that has to be communicated," he said, "and we have to do it well."

Living in fascinating times
As someone who has taken his message on the road, Boyd said he's been amazed watching how technology can help people in the ministry get their word out, and into the most remote places, so much quicker than in the past.

"We're (at) the point now where real-time communication is possible just about anywhere in the world," Boyd said. "I was in a remote place in Africa this past year, and there were people with cell phones out in the bush getting real-time downloads. So for the church, I think we're living in a fascinating time. We used to have to send missionaries around the world and it would take three months by boat to get to the country, and it would take them 20 years to reach every single person in the country. Now we can do that in a matter of minutes and hours."

While Boyd touts the virtues of being up-to-date with technology, no one is claiming that institutions like his and others are breaking ground no one else in the message-spreading business--whatever the message might be--has covered. A case in point is the music industry, where the technology in play at live concerts by big-name acts would put even a megachurch like New Life Church to shame. The same would be true of the film and television industries.

Then again, those industries have catering budgets nearly as big as what almost anyone else can afford when it comes to technology. The point, really, is that each type of business--film, music, news, churches--has upper limits of what's possible economically, and what's important to them is to be as efficient as possible.

"The American church can't measure its success now only by who...comes on Sunday," Boyd said. "Our message is being broadcast more and more through digital means, and they may not ever come to our building, they may never sit in a chair in our church. But they are certainly listening and receiving ministry because of the technology that's available. So the scope of your influence is really unlimited if you're willing to invest the time and money."

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

BOULDER, Colo.--When President Obama said that he wanted to put 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015, it sounded good to many people worried about the effects of fossil fuels.

But when you consider that there are currently about 230 million vehicles on the road in the United States alone, you realize that Obama's goal amounts to less than one half of 1 percent--hardly what's going to move the U.S. into a post-gas future.

Project Get Ready, an initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is trying to help cities get ready for an electric-car future.

(Credit: Project Get Ready)

Still, to the people at Project Get Ready, an initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute, anything that can jump-start a culture trajectory away from fossil fuels is a good thing. And that's why Project Get Ready is starting to work with cities around the country to prepare them, their communities, utilities and merchants for a day when the electric car is not only a viable option but a significant piece of the transportation puzzle.

On Road Trip 2009, I stopped in Boulder to talk with Matt Mattila, one of the leaders of Project Get Ready. I wanted to hear whether he and his team really think that electric cars can become a dominant fixture on our roads and in our cities.

The answer? Not anytime soon, but if we all work together to prepare, it may well happen in the not too, too distant future. But it will take serious thought, cooperation among various constituencies, and a willingness to think long term.

Don't make Chevy Volt a disaster
One of the most important goals has to be, Mattila argued, that electric-car ventures currently under way not fail before they can even get off the ground. That means that by the time a car like the much-heralded Chevy Volt starts to roll off production lines in a year or two, that there be enough of an infrastructure in place to handle them.

To Mattila, one major consideration is the thinking that's going to go on in the board rooms of companies like General Motors and other car makers, which are going to look at the market and the cultural environment and say: We're getting these new cars ready, so make sure there's enough charging stations, easy-to-get permits, consumer education and fleet buy-in. The point? So that, "when Chevy hands its billion-dollar Volt off, it's not going to be a big disaster because there's nowhere to plug it in," Mattila said.

That's where Project Get Ready comes into play, he said. The idea is to work on spreading awareness of what it takes to have an infrastructure for electric cars so that enough cities around the country feel like it's worth the effort to prepare for that future.

As well, it's important to address the chicken-and-egg problem: If consumers don't feel they have places to plug in their new electric cars, they won't buy them. And if people won't buy them, car makers won't make them.

"These few years are critical," Mattila said, "so focus on making (the coming launches) great, so that early adopters evangelize" electric cars and the experience of driving and maintaining them.

But, of course, there's nowhere in the United States that is ready for this yet. So Project Get Ready considers its major task to try to identify the gap that exists in understanding what it takes, and bringing all the various players to the table: city planners, local coalitions, nonprofits and, last, but not least, big utilities.

"They have to be part of the (solution)," Mattila said of the utilities. "If thousands of cars are going to be plugged into their grid, they need to know who's going to be plugged in, and at what rate."

Most will plug in at home
One thing that the electric car has going for it, according to Mattila, is that 80 percent of the charging up that will be done will be done at home or at the office. Many people who own such cars will install a charging station at home, taking some of the burden off the public infrastructure.

"But what can we do to make people see that there are public charging stations" as well, said Mattila. "It's getting people comfortable with seeing them out there" in public.

That's not going to be possible, of course, unless cities, large merchants, and/or utility companies feel there is an economic incentive to make the substantial investment in widespread charging stations.

Today, however, there is a lot of public money available for such projects. Mattila said that as much as half of the costs of charging stations can be offset by government funding. As well, it's a young market without a lot of competition, so some companies making charging stations are installing them for free to try to establish a market.

Others are following a cell phone business model and are installing the charging stations for free, but charging access fees for using them. And still others feel they will only make money by charging for the installation. The folks at Project Get Ready clearly see that merchants may have the most to gain by investing in the infrastructure.

"Our approach is to make a real business case," Mattila said, "so that Gold's Gym and UA Theaters (and such companies) have a real incentive to put them in on their own."

The reason? So that cities don't have to pay for everything.

At the same time, Mattila said that utility companies are looking at a huge windfall when it comes to electric cars and the power they will require. "There could be a huge opportunity for utilities," he said, "to own the boxes and install them and say, 'We can determine when you get energy...how much you get and how much you pay."

The idea there, he added, is that the utilities can ensure that if people plug in during high-demand periods, they pay a premium.

Still, despite the potential economic advantages to utility companies, Mattila said that Project Get Ready's research suggests that the most common models for electric-car infrastructure will be cities and large merchants paying for it.

"The Wal-Marts of the world (can do it to) fulfill the promise of being more green," he said. To them, "it's a drop in the bucket, so they view it as a loss leader to get people coming into the store to buy things."

In that scenario, he added, you might someday see a charging station at every parking spot in a Wal-Mart lot.

More efficient and less expensive
When the Volt comes out, it is expected to be fairly expensive, along the lines of a standard-engine luxury vehicle. So to Mattila, the goal has to be to survive the early adopter stage and get to a point where not only are the second-generation Volts affordable for a larger consumer base, but where there are enough public charging stations available to handle future generations of less expensive electric cars with smaller batteries and shorter driving ranges.

Some people want the green car of tomorrow to be a hydrogen fuel vehicle, Mattila acknowledged, but added that there's no existing hydrogen infrastructure. "The entire country's wired," he said, touting electric cars, "and we can plug in just about anywhere."

Despite his full-time efforts on behalf of a world full of electric cars, Mattila is not entirely optimistic about what he sees.

He does say that he sees maturity in the market in 10 or 15 years and that by 2030 electric cars may well make up a significant percentage of cars on the road. But that's a long time from now.

"I'd say I'm more on the skeptical side...at least when I attend conferences and preach to our choir," he explained. "We try to rein in our people (and) look at the barriers and try to address them, rather than focus on what would be good if we had millions and millions of these things being sold."

Still, Project Get Ready has started ongoing conversations with cities like Houston, Raleigh, N.C., Indianapolis, Portland, and Denver and is in unofficial talks with half a dozen more, all in an effort to inform decision-makers about what they have to do to prepare.

Ultimately, Mattila said, Project Get Ready's five-year plan is to put the country on a trajectory to get off of fossil fuels.

"It's hard to be motivated by something that the next generation is going to benefit from," he explained, "but if we can demonstrate (the profit motivation) then maybe people will get on board. We don't want it to be a sacrifice."

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

This military equipment is based in Utah. The first person to tell me what and where it is wins a prize.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Update at 9:22 a.m. PDT: We have a winner. It's a BOMARC B--Boeing/Marc CIM-10B surface-to-air missile housed at the Hill Air Force Museum, near Ogden, Utah.

BOISE, Idaho--Out here on the highways of Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, I've seen a lot. I'm on Road Trip 2009 and making daily stops at military installations, national parks, small towns, big cities, energy research institutions, and more.

That means I take a lot of pictures, and every day from here until the end of Road Trip 2009, I'll be presenting you with one picture--and a challenge.

On Wednesday, I challenged you to identify the large yellow sphere, in the picture below, that's located in Arco, Idaho. In part it was because I wanted to know what my readers would think it was and, I'll be honest, it was also because I didn't know myself, and I wanted to. I got lots of responses. But, my dear readers, none of them seemed like the correct answer. So the prize for being the first to send me the right answer is still available.

What is this yellow sphere in Arco, Idaho? Tell me and you could win a prize.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Now, however, I'm offering up a picture that I do know the truth about. So in this case, I want to hear from you about what it is and where.

I'll give you a hint: it's a Cold War-era relic, clearly military, and currently located in Utah.

If you're the first person to send me the right answer, Thursday's prize is yours.

Please send your thoughts to daniel--dot--terdiman--at--cnet--dot--com, and include "Pic of the day" in the subject line. If you're the one, I'll get back to you.

Good luck.

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

ASPEN, Colo.--One thing I love is finding uses for things that perhaps no one has thought of before.

I'd already been on Road Trip 2009 for several days when I arrived in this tony Colorado mountain town known best as a playground for the rich and famous. I was hoping to go for a walk and find something good to eat.

It had been a long day of driving, starting in Colorado Springs, and traveling over Independence Pass, a 12,095 "Top of the Rockies" spot just on the Continental Divide. I had planned to stroll around Aspen for a bit and then use my iPhone to get online and find something inexpensive for dinner.

But I had neglected to charge the iPhone, and by the time I got to town, the battery was more or less dead. This is Road Trip, however, and as someone carting around a car full of high-tech gear, I was determined to find a workaround.

Though it is designed to provide a hot-spot for as many as five people in one place, the Verizon MiFi 2200 allowed CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman to create a mobile Wi-Fi connection for an iPod Touch as he walked around Aspen, Colo.

(Credit: Verizon)

One of the gadgets I am road-testing is a 32GB iPod Touch, a device that, if it has access to a Wi-Fi connection, can do much of what the iPhone can do. But on a walk around a town you don't know, it's hard to count on finding such a connection, especially these days when most people password-protect their Wi-Fi.

However, I also am carrying Verizon's MiFi 2200 mobile hot spot, which converts the carrier's EV-DO signal into a Wi-Fi connection that up to five people can share. I had already used the MiFi to provide a signal for the iPod Touch at the very beginning of the trip so that, while sitting on a boarding airplane, I could download a large file from iTunes.

Now, I realized that by turning the MiFi on and sticking it in my back pocket, I could become, in essence, a walking hot spot, allowing me to get online on the iPod Touch, no matter where I was in town. That meant that I could use the Skype app to make a phone call, run several other apps for one reason or another, and look up good places to eat using the device's browser.

Of course, this is the kind of workaround that isn't going to make sense for most people. If you're going to bother paying for an iPod Touch and a MiFi, you might as well just get an iPhone. But if you're road-testing a number of tech gadgets and you see a way to jerry-rig something to solve a problem, why not do it?

It turns out that it's hard to find decent, inexpensive food in Aspen. But thanks to being able to get online while I walked around, I did end up at a terrific place where I had a good, moderately healthy meal for under $20.

And, since I became a walking hot spot, I was also able to get online on my computer, as well, meaning that I was able to actually do some work while I ate, despite the fact that the restaurant where I found that inexpensive meal didn't offer Wi-Fi.

In the end, one thing puzzled me, though. When I first linked the iPod Touch to the MiFi connection, I tried to locate myself using the device's map feature. But instead of pinpointing where I was in Aspen, it told me I was somewhere in Virginia. I thought that was odd, but I chalked it up to the fact that without a GPS chip, it figures out its location relative to the Wi-Fi signals it finds. Given that the MiFi is a loaner, I thought that maybe it had come from Virginia.

Later, however, when I returned to my car and got ready to head out, I plugged in my iPhone and again, with some power, tried to see if it, with GPS, it could locate me. Oddly, though, the iPhone also told me I was in Virginia.

My only conclusion for the fact that both devices told me this: that the folks in Aspen have figured out some way to trick Google Maps so as to keep out the hoi-polloi. But maybe it was something else. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

Two contestants in the Firefighter Combat Challenge get ready to race.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--It's one thing for a track runner to bolt when the gun fires. Imagine how hard it is to jump up from a crouch and race up six flights of stairs while dressed in full firefighting gear and lugging a 42-pound pack of hose.

That's just the very first task in what is known as the Firefighter Combat Challenge (see video below), a nationwide competition involving a series of intense tasks that simulate what fighters deal with on a daily basis.

Photos: Contest pits firefighter against firefighter

View the full gallery

The tour, which appears in cities throughout the country, pulled through Colorado Springs on Friday and Saturday, and held its brand of racing at the U.S. Air Force Academy where CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman was on hand as part of his Road Trip 2009 project.

Dozens of teams participated over the two days of racing, much of it in hot sun, and even some heavy winds. At the end of most of the races, the contestants looked absolutely exhausted. But their efforts excited a large crowd that showed up at the academy to watch.

Teams came from all over the country, including from the Air Force Academy itself.

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

One of the two 25-ton blast doors that protects the main entrance to the Cheyenne Mountain complex outside of Colorado Springs, Colo.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--If there are two things that drive the folks at the world-famous Cheyenne Mountain complex crazy, it's the widely held public perceptions that, for one, the complex has shut down altogether, and that it is synonymous with NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

After visiting as part of my Road Trip 2009 project Friday, I'm here to report that both perceptions are quite incorrect.

For one, the Cheyenne Mountain complex is very much still operational. In some ways, in fact, in a world where existential threats come not from the Soviet Union but from things like natural disasters, cyberattacks, and amorphous terrorist organizations on the hunt for nuclear weapons, it may today even be considered more important than ever.

In its heyday, during the height of the Cold War, it was seen as the nerve center from which U.S. military operations could still conduct business during a nuclear attack. But today, in the post-9/11 era, a whole new set of operational tenants, including U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force Space Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Missile Defense Agency, have moved in.

Secondly, while NORAD does, and has always done, business inside the mountain, the daily operations of its command center moved in May 2008 to the nearby Peterson Air Force Base to form a combined U.S. Northern Command and NORAD command center. Today, the day-to-day NORAD mission at Cheyenne Mountain has combined with U.S. Northern Command and includes a number of missions including training.

Photos: Inside Cheyenne Mountain, America's Fortress

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"Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station is owned and operated by Air Force Space Command," the NORAD Web site explains. "In fact, NORAD and (U.S. Northern Command) use just under 30 percent of the floor space within the complex and comprise approximately 5 percent of the daily population at Cheyenne Mountain."

It would be dishonest of me to not admit that when I first set about trying to arrange a visit to Cheyenne Mountain, I didn't understand the relationship between the complex and NORAD.

It wasn't fully explained to me until my arrival that my initial request to visit the command center--where all the real action takes place--couldn't be met. But I was able to spend a few hours meeting with Col. Brad Gentry, the commander of the 721st Mission Support Group, which runs Cheyenne Mountain, and taking a rare tour--rare because I was allowed to bring a camera--of the deep underground complex.

And after my visit, I have a much clearer picture of what goes on at the facility, and, my hosts hope, so will the general public.

Mission Support Group
Gentry explained that the MSG is responsible for Cheyenne Mountain's civil engineering, its security--both physical and digital--and ensuring that it remains "America's Fortress," perhaps the most impenetrable command center on Earth. Ultimately, the job is to offer the various other agencies inside the complex "five nines reliability," meaning 99.999 percent, when it comes to power, electricity, air conditioning, water, and more.

According to a fact sheet I was given, the threats that the MSG is geared up for, in descending order of likelihood, but increasing level of consequences, are: medical emergencies, natural disasters, civil disorder, a conventional attack, an electromagnetic pulse attack, a cyber or information attack, chemical or biological or radiological attack, an improvised nuclear attack, a limited nuclear attack, or a general nuclear attack.

Preparing for the various kinds of nuclear attacks, however, has nothing to do with the U.S. Strategic Command's Cheyenne Mountain missile warning center, which, Gentry explained, connects with and collects data from missile sensors around the world.

Still, there is plenty of awareness about the potential for a nuclear explosion at Cheyenne Mountain, and during my tour of the infrastructure, much of that was spelled out.

Among the systems set up to protect the critical operations inside the complex from the most dire attacks are giant, 25-ton blast doors placed deep within the mountain, as well as a tunnel and portal structure designed to deflect a nuclear detonation (see video below).

There are also a network of blast valves set up to ensure safe air, redundant power generators on top of a huge battery bank, a massive diesel fuel reservoir, a 4.5 million gallon reservoir of water used as a heat sink, a system of giant springs designed to allow the 15 three-story buildings inside the mountain to shift up to an inch in any direction in case of an explosion or earthquake, and countless sections of flexible pipe connectors meant to ensure that significant shaking doesn't upset normal operations.

Throughout the Cheyenne Mountain complex, the buildings inside are perched on top of more than 1,000 of these giant springs, which are designed to allow the buildings to shift up to an inch in any direction in case of a nuclear attack or a major earthquake.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

In essence, the complex is a small city. Six hundred people work there, and as such, there's a medical center, a small store, a cafeteria, and more. Should Cheyenne Mountain be shut down for any reason--what is known in the complex's parlance as a "button up," the personnel left inside "can maintain fitness" at the gym, Gentry said.

And while top brass inside are afforded sleeping suites for use in case of a button up, lesser personnel would still be able to rest there, as the facility maintains a sizable collection of cots.

So finely tuned
When entering the complex, everyone has to go through two sets of the giant blast doors. Though they weigh 25 tons, they're "so finely tuned," Gentry said, that even just two people should be able to swing them shut or open.

At the same time, the doors lock when a series of giant pistons swing forward and into large, corresponding slots. Even the piston system has a backup, though, with levers that can be manually operated to pull open or push shut the pistons.

"People will not ever be trapped in this facility," Gentry said.

That's also true because, should every other system fail, including the blast doors, there's a small trap door inside one of the tunnels that allows people to escape. That's assuming they're not claustrophobic, Gentry joked.

The series of blast valves, meanwhile, are set up so that, should there be an attack, the air inside remains breathable. That's because the valves have sophisticated filters that can clean contaminated air, and which provide a 20-second delay between entering the mountain from the outside and making it inside the blast doors.

Indeed, said Jason Cook, the civil engineering director, the blast doors and blast valves are designed to work in conjunction to protect the complex from the worst possible scenario: a blast wave. With the single push of a button, Cook added, the filters kick in to clean the air, and the doors close. The civil engineering section of the facility even has its own blast door (see video below).

What's more, the complex is set up to shield the interior against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which can fry most electronics. Cook said that, in fact, Cheyenne Mountain is the only DOD high-altitude Electromagnetic Pulse certified underground facility. Among the protections are wall-mounted EMP filters called metallic-oxide varistors, which dampen the pulse, as well as a system that allows personnel inside to break away interior electronic systems from the external commercial power systems.

Water supply, however, is something the mountain itself takes care of. While the complex maintains a 1.5 million gallon-capacity reservoir, there's actually a natural spring within the granite that supplies more water than the base uses. That means that the reservoir stores enough water to put out any fire that could break out inside the facility, Cook said.

Out of place and time
In a story she wrote in 2008, the journalist Annalee Newitz wrote of a tour of Cheyenne Mountain she got with a group of science-fiction writers that, "Yesterday, I traveled back in time to the Cold War...The underground base has become the stuff of historical myth and science fiction legend. That's why I felt gripped by the surreal as I walked into its rough-walled cave entrance, then through a gleaming blast door, fully three feet thick and packed with huge, hydraulic pins that slid into place when the door shut."

Having been there now myself, I know what Newitz means. While our daily lives are no longer spent worrying that the Russians might someday launch nuclear missiles at us, there's little doubt that we do face the risks of serious nuclear, chemical, or biological attack.

So for me, while walking through the complex in the Obama era is certainly different than it would have been during the Reagan years, there's no doubt that Cheyenne Mountain is still a place where the worst scenarios have corresponding contingency plans and where the people charged with running it take their jobs very seriously.

Whether America needs a facility like Cheyenne Mountain is not for me to say. But being inside and seeing how the base is put together makes one appreciate the mindset of 1961, when ground first broke on the complex, when it seemed as though the worst could come at any time. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet. But those involved have been as ready as possible all along.

At the United States Air Force Academy on Thursday, 1,376 basic cadets arrived for initiation.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--"Get off my bus!"

As the door opened, those words exploded out and it seemed that everyone within a few hundred feet must have heard them. But there was no doubt the two or three dozen on board did, as they came scurrying off at high speed.

These were one busload of the 1,376 members of the United States Air Force Academy's class of 2013, and, less glamorously, the brand new basic cadets who had arrived here Thursday, many just weeks out of high school.

Accustomed to being on top of their respective worlds--they had high grades, top SAT scores, and were chosen from among nearly 10,000 applicants to the Academy--these men and women were now reduced to being screamed at by fellow students just two years ahead of them.

As part of Road Trip 2009, I was on hand Thursday for what is known as "in-processing," the initiation of the new class of students and I can tell you that the scenes from all those movies of drill sergeants yelling at new recruits at the top of their lungs, blood vessels bulging out of their necks, are not far from the truth.

But that was later in the day. First, the 1,300-plus new students had shown up, many with parents and brothers and sisters in tow, and as an observer, it was hard to tell any difference between that scene and what you'd see at any college's first day.

Photos: Getting screamed at, Air Force initiation style

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Yet there was a sense of nervousness and seriousness palpable in the air. It was clear these new students were aware that they were in for something that would take their lives in a new and extremely difficult direction.

But you have to think it's what they wanted.

"I'm feeling a little, I'd say, anxious, nervous, and excited," said Joel Starkey, 18, of Atlanta. "I wanted to fly since I was in about third grade, and I want to be an officer in the military. I want to commit myself to something bigger."

Nearby, an interesting scene was under way. Twin girls were huddled with their family, and when I approached them, I discovered that the girls, Catherine and Irene Joyce, 18 and from Omaha, Neb., were joining up, as was their first cousin, Molly Bush. It turned out that Bush's father was an Academy graduate, as was her sister.

For Catherine Joyce, her first day at the academy--and whatever indignities it might bring--were clearly stepping stones to a career she seemed very certain she wanted.

"It's exciting and I'm honored, and it's a privilege to be here," Joyce said. "I learned about (the Academy) by visiting and speaking with cadets and officers, and everyone in the Air Force told me the best way to become an officer was to come to the Academy."

On the bus
I was allowed to ride one of the buses away from the intake hall and toward the actual grounds of the Academy. Onboard, the basic cadets looked tight and nervous. One of the more senior cadets had gotten on behind them and immediately began barking out commands to quickly find a seat. He leaned over to me at one point and whispered that "it's about to get loud." And then, without warning to the basic cadets, he began screaming out commands, telling them exactly where to hold their hands, not to speak unless spoken to, that they must recite the seven basic--and only--responses to questions they were now allowed and more.

"Have I made myself clear?" he bellowed.

"Yes, sir," the basic cadets called out.

"Have I made myself clear?" he shouted even louder.

"Yes, sir," they responded.

Soon, a woman cadet in the back of the bus began her own shouting, snidely calling out the names of West Point, Annapolis, and the Officer Candidates School, the officer training grounds of, respectively, the Army, Navy, and Marines. "Nobody even comes close," she yelled. "We are the service academy for the last superpower on the face of the planet. You have made the right choice."

By now, the bus had stopped. We were at our destination. But the door hadn't opened yet.

"If any of you are not a person of absolute integrity, stay on my bus," the first cadet hollered. "If you are not willing to sacrifice for your nation, stay on my bus. If you accept the minimum as your own personal standard, stay on my bus. If you are not ready to give your best...stay on my bus. (And) you'd better be ready to live up to the legacy in front of you...and that begins right now!"

With that, the doors opened, and the veteran cadets screamed some more, now ordering the newbies off the bus at an even higher volume than before (see video below).

The freshmen grabbed their gear and hustled off the bus. They ran to where a cluster of blue-uniformed cadets were waiting in front of a large mat emblazoned with footprints for them to stand on.

A fresh veteran cadet stood in front of the group of newbies and shouted out his commands. That they were to keep their feet each at a 22.5 degree angle from their head, meaning that their feet would be open at a 45 degree angle; that their hands should be held, cupped, at their sides, with their thumbs even with the seams of their pants. And then he ordered his cadre of veteran cadets to "correct" any mistakes they saw in how the new cadets were standing.

This, of course, was their excuse to loudly, energetically, and enthusiastically rush around and berate the newcomers. One by one, it seemed, they would be singled out and screamed at for this or that mistake (see video below). I could tell the veteran cadets were enjoying this, finally their opportunity to shift forward their revenge for when this happened to them two years ago.

It went on for a while, and then, finally and mercifully, it stopped, and the new cadets were ordered to grab their gear and head off up a ramp to begin the next rounds of processing.

Box Boy
For many associated with the Air Force Academy, the most memorable basic cadet of the day--and maybe ever--was a tall brown-haired kid who emerged from the bus lugging a giant box on his shoulders. The scene was absurd, and he was immediately set upon by several of the cadre, who shouted out things like, "Are you kidding me," and, "Did you bring your Xbox and your TV?"

This new cadet will forever be known as 'Box Boy,' since he arrived with this giant box. The veteran cadets who welcomed him did so with insults, derision and incredulity.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Box Boy, as he quickly began to be called throughout the Academy, had clearly miscalculated, and not only would he likely never live down the shame of having brought this giant box with him, but he'd also have to spend the entire rest of the day carrying the box on his shoulders, as basic cadets have to lug their gear with them the entire first day.

Another basic cadet also had attracted a huge amount of attention from the group. At one point, I counted at least seven cadets circled around him, screaming at him and yelling and belittling him. I asked someone why he'd been singled out, and was told that this particular basic cadet had somehow let it be known that he planned on being the first man on Mars, and that his time at the Academy was little more than a brief stepping stone on his way to glory as an astronaut.

He may be right. But on this day, he was just fresh meat, and a prime target for ridicule.

From there, the new cadets went on through several more procedural steps toward actually joining the Air Force. They got immunized, they got haircuts, and then they had to take their formal oath (see video below) to the service. They gathered in a conference room, stood up, repeated the oath as recited to them by a woman officer who, when finished, said simply, "Congratulations, you're now in the Air Force."

Hard to believe it was three years ago
While waiting in the room where the men were getting their hair cut, I came across Cadet First Class--meaning, a senior--Frank Mercurio. He was talking about the new basic cadets and what they must be feeling.

"I think they're real scared, real worried about how hard it's going to be," Mercurio said. "It's going to be the hardest thing they've ever done in their lives up to this point...The first day is so overwhelming. You just get things thrown at you and you can fold up like a deck of cards, or carry through."

I asked him if any of the new cadets ever backed out, and he said that in fact he'd heard that just today, one had gotten off the bus, made it to the mat with the footprints, and "turned right back around and got back on the bus."

It turns out that a few dozen of the basic cadets will end up dropping out or leaving for one reason or another, but most will stick it out and eventually become Air Force officers.

But all that seems so far away when, for the first time, they're sitting in a barber's chair, having their hair shaved off.

I stood and watched as several of the kids went under the razor, going from shaggy-headed to buzz-cut. And then, as one of them got up to leave, his barber, a cheery, flamboyant woman named Hannah Love, said, "Oh, look at how cute you are. Bye."

Correction at 7:10 a.m. PDT: The name of the Marines officers school has been fixed

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation, and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

A rendering of the MAVEN spacecraft that is being conceived of by a team led by University of Colorado professor Bruce Jakosky. The project aims to study the atmosphere of Mars in order to determine why it changed over the last four billion years, and whether the planet previously was suitable for life.

(Credit: Lockheed Martin)

BOULDER, Colo.--As anyone who spent a lot of Saturday mornings watching cartoons knows, Martians are for real, and they're green. But for scientists, things aren't quite as certain. So now, a group is setting out to find out whether the Red Planet could in fact have supported life.

In September, NASA awarded the University of Colorado the biggest research grant in the school's history for a project led by professor Bruce Jakosky to investigate the history of the climate on Mars. The idea behind the $486 million project--known as Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN--is to try to discover why Mars' climate has changed over the past few billions years, and whether the planet before those changes was an environment suitable for life.

I visited Jakosky in his office at the University's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) building on Wednesday as part of Road Trip 2009, my annual search for the best stories the country has to offer. And while there, Jakosky explained the rationale for a project that, if successful, could occupy scientists for decades.

Set to launch in November 2013, MAVEN (see video below) is now in what Jakosky said is phase B of a five-phase development cycle. Phase A is concept development; phase B is about determining requirements and preliminary design; phase C is final design and early building; phase D is assembly, testing, and launch operations; and phase E is the science mission.

If the MAVEN team--which is made up of a group from LASP, as well as partners at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of California at Berkeley and Lockheed Martin--passes the major review that comes at the end of phase B, it will move on with its goal of attempting to figure out what led to what Jakosky said are dramatic changes in Mars' atmosphere that have been previously detected by other missions to the fourth rock from the sun.

The highest-level goals for MAVEN are to learn as much as possible about Mars' geology, its interior, its original potential for life and if there was ever life there.

Jakosky explained that past research has demonstrated that Mars used to have a much thicker atmosphere than it does today, and that there likely was water on the planet's surface. Those together indicate an environment that would have been conducive to life. But what is not known is the relationship between the atmosphere, as it has changed, and the potential for supporting living things.

One theory of the MAVEN project is that the disappearance of Mars' magnetic field may have led to the loss of its atmosphere.

(Credit: NASA)

The evidence, he said, is that Mars' atmosphere has tremendous amounts of gas to space. The question, however, is what gases, and how much. "So what we'd like to do is observe the escape of gases over (the last) 4 billion years," Jakosky said.

Clearly, there's no way to hit rewind and see precisely what gases there were, and how they escaped. But Jakosky said that by looking at the Martian atmosphere today, and seeing the rate of gas escape today, and why that's happening, the MAVEN scientists can extrapolate back in time, potentially letting them learn what happened over 4 billion years. "We don't know what Mars has done," he said, "but we know what the Sun has done."

And so one of the biggest goals of the project is to measure the ratio of isotopes in the Martian atmosphere, he said, and to see what the loss of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen has been. "Those will tell us about the total loss over time," Jakosky explained.

Eight instruments
The MAVEN project will be comprised of eight major instruments on board the spacecraft to measure the key properties and processes going on today, and it will be the first time such a suite of instruments will have been deployed to Mars.

"It's really a mission of discovery," he said. "We're exploring the upper atmosphere (of Mars) for the first time."

Goddard will produce two of the instruments; LASP two; and UC Berkeley four. The spacecraft will be made by Lockheed Martin in South Denver, Colo.

But while this particular group of instruments will never have been deployed before, the mission itself is "high heritage," Jakosky said, meaning that most of its profile has been done before, in earlier missions. "All we're doing is adding it all together."

Indeed, he said, NASA awarded the MAVEN project, and the nearly half-billion dollars in funding, to Jakosky and his team because their proposal was deemed to have the lowest risk. That was due to the experience everyone on the project had, and because the instruments in question had been deployed on similar projects in the past, he said.

Still, much about how the project is unknown, as is always the case in large-scale initiatives like this, Jakosky said. What is known, however, is that the MAVEN team has a strict top spending limit of $486 million.

But he added that in order to get to the point of having been selected to run the MAVEN project, his and other teams competing for the honor probably spent $60 million or more preparing for the selection process. And that means that his group is battle-tested and ready to move forward, he suggested.

In competitive environments, he explained, teams have to work very hard to make sure every T is crossed and I is dotted. "I see through our mission the benefits of having done that," he said. "We put together the best mission (proposal) we could. Now, we have to implement the full technical capabilities on schedule and on budget."

I asked Jakosky, as the recipient of such a big grant--around $200 million will go to the University of Colorado alone--if he feels that there's much pressure to deliver the goods.

"There is, but I've got such a good team...that I feel very confident," he said. "We've been given (nearly) half a billion dollars of the public's money. So we have to provide the mission and the science back to them. That's a heavy responsibility."

What happened to Mars?
Based on evidence gathered from previous Mars missions, scientists feel confident that the planet once had standing water on the surface. That's because of channels indicating rivers and closed depressions that could have been lakes. But today's Martian atmosphere wouldn't support water on the surface, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it would freeze. So why the change?

Jakosky said that the MAVEN team is exploring the interaction between Mars and the Sun. One question is what role solar winds had in stripping off Mars' atmosphere.

One might conclude that the atmosphere decayed over billions of years, but Jakosky said that the question there is why that happened. Mars is too heavy for molecules from its atmosphere to have simply escaped into outer space, so one of the most important questions MAVEN will seek to find the answer to is what gave those molecules the energy to leave. And based on what they know, solar winds and UV light from the Sun are suspected as two major culprits.

Assuming that MAVEN passes its phase B review, and makes it all the way to launch, the project would have the go-ahead for one year of Martian atmospheric exploration. Much of the analysis of the data would be done in real time as it comes back from the spacecraft, but Jakosky said that based on the results of prior missions like Pioneer Venus, he would expect that scientists would spend 30 years or more analyzing the MAVEN data.

Of course, he hopes that the MAVEN project is such a success that NASA gives the go-ahead for an extension of the mission, likely to a full Martian year, which is just less than two Earth years.

But the first task, he said, is to worry about the work that must get his team from now until launch. And he knows that the path to success is hardly assured. Fully one-third of the nine Mars missions NASA has undertaken have failed, he said. "There are a thousand opportunities to fail between now and a successful mission. Our job is to make sure we don't fall into them, and (to) succeed."

For Jakosky, MAVEN is a chance to add a big exclamation point to his career, particularly because he hasn't been the leader of a mission before. "This is the capstone of my career," he said. "I think this is important enough that I'm willing to spend ten years out of my career doing this mission."

And why should the public be satisfied that the MAVEN team is spending almost a half billion of their dollars?

"We're exploring the solar system (and learning) how planets work," Jakosky said. "These are questions, about life, that everybody asks. Everybody wants to know. Because the public is interested. Because Congress is interested, and because we're answering important questions."

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.