NORAD's alternate command center, at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, near Colorado Springs, Colo. While NORAD's main operations recently moved to the nearby Peterson Air Force Base, it still maintains the ACC at Cheyenne Mountain.
(Credit: U.S. Air Force)During my recently completed Road Trip 2009 project, one of the biggest highlights was my visit inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex at the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station. Recognizable from the movie, "War Games," and the "Stargate" TV series, the complex was long popularly known as NORAD, or the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
But in 2008, NORAD officially moved to the nearby Peterson Air Force Base. Still, even to this day, it maintains an alternate command center at Cheyenne Mountain that it shares with U.S. Northern Command, or USNORTHCOM.
When I visited, I was allowed the rare privilege of bringing a camera with me, and I took a lot of pictures. But the pictures were mainly of the infrastructure of Cheyenne Mountain, and I wasn't able to see the alternate command center (ACC).
Now, the Air Force has provided me with this photo, of the ACC, which, since my very first step when planning Road Trip 2009 was to see about arranging a visit to Cheyenne Mountain, is a fitting way to formally close the book on the project.
The ACC, as seen in this photo, has certainly been "scrubbed," meaning that personnel in the room were very careful to ensure that nothing sensitive was visible in the shot. Still, you can get a sense for what goes on in the room today. To be sure, it looks very little like the giant command center that was made so famous in "War Games." Yet in today's world, where everything is smaller, more compact, and more efficient than back in the early 1980s, it's no wonder that a facility like this would have the feel of an office full of cubicles.
Either way, you can tell that the ACC is a place that has the ability to run serious exercises, and, in the case of a real emergency, is capable of being used as NORAD's main nerve center. Let's hope that's never necessary.
At exactly 3,000 miles into Road Trip 2009, CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman and the Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV he's road-testing were on the road alongside Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)CRATERS OF THE MOON, Idaho--It's hard for me to believe, because I still feel like I just started Road Trip 2009, but I've already driven enough miles to have crossed the entire United States.
Already it's been 18 days, and on Wednesday, I hit exactly 3,000 miles since I started this project. And it was in one of the most foreign and awe-inspiring places I've ever seen: alongside the road adjacent to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.
I'll post a story and photo gallery on this huge and incredible place tomorrow, so I won't get into details on it now. But suffice it to say that if you spend any time here, you know a little bit about what it must be like to walk on surfaces that aren't here on Earth.
The odometer may read 1,000 miles, but Road Trip 2009 has actually been on the highways of Colorado, Utah, and Idaho--with brief crossings into Arizona and Nevada--for 3,000 miles already. How many more miles will there be?
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Since I hit 2,000 miles, meanwhile, I've been extremely busy. I've stopped by the Golden Spike National Historic Site, where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met for the first time, forming the transcontinental railroad. I've walked on Robert Smithson's masterpiece of an earthwork, Spiral Jetty, which seems to float on top of the Great Salt Lake. At the Utah Test & Training Range, I've seen how the U.S. Air Force trains its pilots on America's largest bombing range. I've played with my iPhone and seen how it integrates seamlessly with the Audi Q7 TDI I'm road-testing. And I've been the first reporter to see the completed Ares I test rocket that will be fired in August in what will be an important first step to getting people back to the moon.
Now, I've moved on, have visited Craters of the Moon, and have urged my readers to help me figure out what to do in Boise, Idaho. I've also picked your brains about the best apps for the new iPhone 3GS.
Each year, Road Trip challenges me with an incredible roster of destinations and a non-stop pace. But it's always worth it. And whether I'm driving enough miles to cross the country, or adding enough miles to return again, I'm going to keep on sharing my experiences with you. I hope you enjoy 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 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.
A MUTE, or multiple threat emitter simulator, which is designed to throw up electronic challenges to pilots attempting bombing missions at the Utah Test & Training Range.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)DUGWAY, Utah--"We train warriors and test weapons."
That's how Col. Jeff Snell, the commander of the 388th Range Squadron, which operates the gargantuan Utah Test & Training Range (UTTR), summed up the main mission of his command.
I had spent the day visiting part of UTTR's Maryland-size facilities, and discovered that Snell's words were a very succinct way of explaining what really goes on at the range: Air Force pilots fly in there in screaming-fast aircraft to run bombing training missions, often in advance of deployments to either Iraq or Afghanistan, and, less frequently, the Air Force uses the facility to test out various weapons systems.
Unless you knew it was there, you wouldn't know it was there. There is so much desert in northwest Utah, much of it with small, Afghanistan-like mountains, that except in very rare cases, the public never goes anywhere near UTTR. And that means that pilots flying missions there have almost unfettered scope for firing away at their targets, often with live bombs or missiles.
Indeed, unlike other bombing ranges around the country, all of which limit the direction in which missiles can be fired, UTTR offers the Air Force no such limitations. Instead, the property is so big that in most cases, there is nothing to stop pilots from firing any which way they please.
As part of my Road Trip 2009 project, I was given a tour of part of UTTR by Maj. David Dunklee, the detachment commander there. He explained that his team--mainly made up of civilians--have four main tasks: setting up and refurbishing targets; photographing missions, with centimeter accuracy; challenging pilots on missions with all manner of electronic threats in attempts to make the missions as realistic as possible; and basic infrastructure management.
While the first and the last of those duties are probably the most time-consuming, the most complex parts are the middle two: photography and challenging pilots during their missions.
The point of the photography component is to record every last bit of data about each and every mission that is run at UTTR, and that's a big number. According to Snell, there are about 15,000 sorties a year at UTTR, most of which are training runs. Pilots will fly all kinds of aircraft there, including the politically controversial F-22, B-1s, B-2s, F-15Es, and others.
Scattered around UTTR are small white domes called cine-theodolites. These are camera batteries in which operators are able, through very high-powered lenses, to capture imagery of elements of bombing missions, and, when combined with at least two and, ideally, three other Cine-Ts, as they're called, Dunklee's people can triangulate and create a "centimeter accuracy" record of what went on during a mission.
And that's important, because the critical part of the missions that are run at UTTR is giving decision makers, pilots and others involved in the Air Force, a way to see exactly went right and what went wrong during a mission, or with a test weapon, so that they can determine the pilot, or the weapon, are ready for prime time.
This is called "scoring" the missions, and with more than 300 targets scattered all over UTTR, it is important that Dunklee's team have infrastructure in place where and when it's needed so that every mission can be scored.
Realistic conditions
But pilots wouldn't get much out of running training bombing missions if they had free and clear access at their targets. That's why another task of the Dunklee's people is to run interference, and to, essentially, be the "bad guys," as John Bridgman, a quality assurance operator, put it. To that end, Bridgman and his colleagues are given control of systems that can transmit many different kind of threats that pilots will have to contend with as they scream over UTTR in their aircraft.
Several drones that will be used as unmanned flying targets for the pilots attempting missions at the range.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Those threats can be anything that a pilot might encounter in actual combat: shoulder-launched missiles, surface-to-air missiles, other airplanes and so on. "We throw everything we can at them," Bridgman said, trying to simulate shooting them down.
Additionally, Bridgman's team moves its equipment around so that they can "attack" from anywhere, making it impossible for pilots to learn where the threats, of which there are at least 75 different kinds, might be coming from.
Another element of presenting pilots with realistic conditions is giving them moving targets. Already, UTTR has two autonomous tanks that are capable of pulling targets around on trailers at slow speeds. But now, the Air Force is preparing to roll out a new system, a GPS and transmitter-geared-up Ford F-350 truck that is designed to pull a target around without a driver at 55 miles an hour.
The truck cost the Air Force more than $100,000, Dunklee estimated, so it's crucial that pilots not hit it. But with precision weapons, and long trailers, no one is too worried about losing the pricey vehicle to a rogue bomb. Rather, they hope, pilots will hit the inexpensive targets placed on the trailer.
At UTTR, there are other target scenarios going on than just pilots firing directly at targets. Those types of missions are intended mainly as training for the pilots. But there are also test of weapons systems such as cruise missiles. In that case, pilots of bombers like a B-52 will fly into UTTR and fire such a missile, which, in an attempt to simulate the up to four hours of flight time it might have in combat, will proceed to "spaghetti" overhead until finally zeroing on its target.
Back at Mission Control
The command center for UTTR is at Hill Air Force Base, which is north of Salt Lake City and about a two-hour drive from UTTR. There, Snell and his team, as well as any of a wide range of "customers," including personnel from the Air Force, other military services, the Defense Department, defense contractors and others can watch the missions play out in real time, thanks to Dunklee's photography team.
The various tracking systems deployed at UTTR allow those in the command center to see very accurate and up-to-the-minute data about the missions, giving them the ability to understand precisely what is happening at any given moment and, later, to make decisions based on that information.
And while the most common mission of Snell's 388th Range Squadron is training pilots who are headed for combat, it is also to evaluate new weapons systems.
In August, then, the 388th will begin a weapons systems evaluation program (WSEP) that will last for three weeks. Personnel involved in the evaluation will begin to show up at Hill up to a couple weeks early for preparation. A WSEP, Snell said, is designed to produce an end-to-end examination of a weapons program, of everyone involved in it, and of their ability to react to conditions on the ground.
All told, given how many people are involved, both at UTTR and at Hill, how many bombs are dropped annually and how many sorties are flown there, it's amazing that the Air Force is able to pull it all off without the general public even knowing it is going on in their backyard.
But that's the advantage provided by a piece of land that is protected by mountains on several sides and which is the size of the state of Maryland. And while there have certainly been deadly cases of miscalculation in airborne attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force feels that those who train at UTTR are as well-prepared as a pilot can be before heading off into combat.
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off 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 looking for 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.
As Road Trip 2009 hit 2,000 miles, CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman found himself in Terra, Utah, on the way to the Utah Test & Training Center, also the home of the Dugway Proving Grounds.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)TERRA, Utah--It seems like has still just started, but the odometer hit 2,000 miles as I was driving through this tiny hamlet.
Terra is near the entrance to the Dugway Proving Grounds, where I was on my way to visit the Air Force's 388th Range Squadron and its Utah Test & Training Center--the largest bombing range in the country,
Since I hit 1,000 miles just a few days ago, I've done quite a few things and, obviously, covered a lot of ground in the Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV I'm road-testing. From Glenwood Springs, Colo., I head south, toward Moab, Utah, and its famous Arches National Park. I also did a very long drive down into Canyonlands National Park, as well as into southern Utah and its border with Arizona where I had my jaw dropped as I encountered the otherworldly Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. I put it all together in one convenient package for your viewing pleasure.
For some reason, the odometer rolled back to 0.0 instead of 2000.0 miles. Still, this was exactly as Road Trip 2009 hit 2,000 miles.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Later, I took a fantastic, meandering drive north toward the Great Salt Lake and ended up deep in Utah's northern desert, where I spent a day at Dugway learning how the U.S. Army works to protect against chemical and biological weapons.
After a night to digest that sobering reality, it was back to Dugway again. But before I could hit the gates--which were in sight--for my visit with the Air Force, the odometer rolled over. I always like to stop and commemorate the round number milestones, such as 1,000 miles and now, 2,000. Unfortunately, for reasons I don't yet understand but which I'm sure were fully preventable, the odometer reached 1999.9 miles and then reverted to 0.0. Still, 2,000 miles it's been. And while I'm exhausted, there are still many more miles and many more adventures to come.
This is the Audi Q7 TDI, a clean diesel vehicle, that Daniel Terdiman is road-testing on Road Trip 2009.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)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.
"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.
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