Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Cheyenne Mountain Complex

Starting point is 00:00:00 Buried deep beneath thousands of feet of granite in Colorado is one of the most famous military installations ever built. Designed during the Cold War to remain operational during a nuclear attack, it features massive blast doors, buildings mounted on giant springs, and systems built to withstand a catastrophe. It's inspired movies, television shows, conspiracy theories, and decades of speculation about what really happens inside. Learn more about the remarkable history of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick.

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Starting point is 00:01:54 Colorado Springs, Colorado. Built at the height of the Cold War, it was designed to keep the command structure responsible for defending North America functioning during a nuclear attack. The origins of the complex lie in the rapid development of nuclear weapons and long-range bombers after World War II. During the early 1950s, the principal American fear was that Soviet strategic bombers would fly across the Arctic and attack cities and military installations in Canada and the United States. In response, the U.S. and Canada constructed increasingly sophisticated radar networks across the northern portions of the continent, including the Pine Tree Line, the Mid-Canada line, and eventually the distant early warning line. The information from these systems had to be

Starting point is 00:02:40 collected somewhere, analyzed rapidly, and then passed to interceptor aircraft, missile batteries, and national political leaders. The Continental Air Defense Command was established in Colorado Springs in 1954. In 1957, the United States and Canada established the North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, formerly confirmed by treaty the following year. NORAD centralized the operational control of continental air defense against Soviet attack. The original command facilities were above ground at End Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. That presented a problem. A command center responsible for managing the defense of an entire continent

Starting point is 00:03:23 was itself vulnerable to the very weapons that it was supposed to warn against. And even worse than that, the threat was starting to change in the 1950s. By the late 1950s, the Soviet Union was developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. Sputnik's launch in October of 1957 demonstrated that the Soviet Union possessed rockets powerful enough to place payloads in orbit, which also suggested the ability to deliver nuclear warheads across intercontinental distances. A command center might therefore only receive a few minutes of warning. The obvious solution was to move the command center underground. General Earl E. Partridge, commander of the Continental Air Defense Command, and an important figure in the early development of NORAD, argued that the command center

Starting point is 00:04:13 should be separated from other major military targets and hardened sufficiently to continue functioning after a nuclear explosion. Early planning envisioned a facility capable of surviving blast pressures on the order of 200 pounds per square inch. It would also need independent communications, electricity, water, and air handling systems. By 1958, NORAD concluded that a command center inside a granite mountain near Colorado Springs offered the best combination of protection expansion capability, communications access, and cost. Cheyenne Mountain wasn't selected because it just happened to be nearby, however. Several possible locations around Colorado Springs were examined, including Blodget Peak

Starting point is 00:04:57 near the Air Force Academy. The Army Corps of Engineers ultimately recommended Cheyenne Mountain and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the location in March of 1959. There were several advantages of using Cheyenne Mountain. First was geology. Cheyenne Mountain consists largely of extremely solid granite. Granite provides an enormous natural shield against blast effects, heat, radiation, and flying debris. Instead of constructing thousands of feet of reinforced concrete, engineers could use the mountain itself as armor.

Starting point is 00:05:32 The mountain also allowed chambers to be excavated deep enough that roughly 1,500 to 2,000 feet of rock could lie between portions of the facility, and the surface. Second was its location. Colorado Springs was already the center of North American Air Defense Command operations. Moving NORAD hundreds or thousands of miles somewhere else would have meant recreating an extensive communications and support network. The third reason was isolation. In the late 1950s, the area surrounding Cheyenne Mountain was sparsely populated compared

Starting point is 00:06:06 with most American cities. It was also sufficiently separated from other high-value, military installations such that a single Soviet weapon would be less likely to destroy multiple facilities at the same time. There was also another advantage that became increasingly important, room for expansion. Norad argued that an underground complex excavated in granite could be enlarged more readily than a conventional hardened structure built with concrete. Funding and bureaucratic debates delayed construction for several years. By the fall of 1959, the Air Force had selected Cheyenne Mountain and obtained initial funding, but the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Starting point is 00:06:45 temporarily froze much of the money while defense plans were reassessed. The project finally received renewed approval in 1961. The Utah Construction and Mining Company received the excavation contract and worked under the supervision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Initial excavation began in May of 1961, followed by a ceremonial groundbreaking in June, involving Norad Commander General Lawrence Cutter and the head of Air Defense Command, General Robert M. Lee. The scale of the project was enormous. Miners drove large tunnels directly into the granite using controlled explosives. One important innovation was a technique known as smooth wall blasting. Instead of simply detonating large charges and fracturing large areas of surrounding rock,

Starting point is 00:07:36 engineers carefully positioned and timed smaller explosions. This produced comparatively smooth excavation surfaces, reducing unwanted cracking. The main excavation was accomplished remarkably quickly. It was reportedly completed in 367 days. Ultimately, approximately 693,000 to 700,000 tons of granite were removed, creating about 5.1 acres of underground floor space. More than 10,000 rock bolts were installed to stabilize the walls and ceilings, some of which were dozens of feet long. Engineers discovered fractures and sheer planes in portions of the

Starting point is 00:08:17 mountain that had not been apparent during preliminary geological surveys. At one point, the orientation of portions of the complex had to be changed to avoid rock formations that could cause future problems. One particularly troublesome intersection became known as the B-2 intersection. Engineers discovered geological weaknesses in the ceiling that might remain stable under normal circumstances, but could fail under the shock of a nuclear explosion. And their solution was extraordinary. They constructed a massive, reinforced concrete dome underneath the questionable portions of the rock, in some places several feet thick, which added millions of dollars to the project.

Starting point is 00:09:00 Cheyenne Mountain is sometimes imagined as rooms carved directly into the rock, and that's not quite how the main complex works. Engineers first excavated enormous underground chambers. They then constructed conventional steel buildings inside of the chambers. There are 15 principal buildings in the complex, generally described as 12, 3-story buildings and 3-2-story buildings. The truly remarkable feature is that most of those buildings are not rigidly attached to the cavern floor.

Starting point is 00:09:32 They sit on enormous, steel coil springs. Roughly 1,300 springs support the buildings. Each spring is several feet tall and can carry tremendous loads. The idea is similar to shock absorbers in machinery, only the scale is of an entire building. If a nearby nuclear explosion sent a shockwave through the mountain, the granite itself would move. A building rigidly attached to the rock could suffer catastrophic structural damage or destroy sensitive equipment. The springs allow the rock and the building to move somewhat independently. Because of the springs, flexible connections were required for water pipes, electrical cables,

Starting point is 00:10:16 ventilation ducts, and other utilities. Otherwise, the building might survive while all of its pipes and cables snapped. The most famous piece of Cheyenne Mountain Engineering are its enormous blast doors. The main entrance tunnel penetrates deeply into the mountain before reaching the protected portions of the facility. The geometry of the tunnels was deliberately designed to prevent a blast wave from traveling directly into the command center. Two giant steel blast doors conceal the entire complex from the outside. Accounts vary slightly depending on the particular door and period, but they weigh roughly 20 to 25 tons each and are about a meter or about three and a half feet thick. Despite their enormous mass, the doors are balanced so carefully that they can be shut

Starting point is 00:11:05 in just 45 seconds. Because they don't want pressure differences from the inside and the outside to hold the door shut, they are only closed in the event of an actual crisis or a training exercise. So Cheyenne Mountain's defensive engineering basically works in layers. The mountain absorbs much of the initial blast. Tunnel geometry dissipates additional energy. Blast doors, seal volume, vulnerable openings, springs isolate buildings from shock, and filters and valves protect against radioactive or chemically contaminated air. The NORAD Combat Operations Center began operating inside the mountain on April 20, 1966. Additional systems were installed afterward, and official histories also cite February 6, 1967, as the date of completion or full

Starting point is 00:11:54 operation of the complex. The total reported construction cost was a process. approximately $142.4 million in 1960s, an enormous investment at that time. Through the late 1960s, the 1970s, and 1980s, Cheyenne Mountain became increasingly associated with missile warnings rather than simply bomber defense. Satellites and ground-based radar could detect missile launches and track objects in space. Information flowed into computers inside the mountain where personnel attempted to determine whether an apparent launch represented an attack, a test, a satellite launch, or an error. The complex became an integral part of the system, connecting NORAD, Strategic Air Command, the Pentagon, and National Command authorities.

Starting point is 00:12:44 That responsibility produced a couple frightening episodes. On November 9, 1979, test data representing a Soviet nuclear attack was accidentally fed into the operational. operational warning system. Displays indicated that large numbers of Soviet missiles were headed towards North America. Military aircraft and command posts reacted before other sensors revealed that no missiles existed. Then on June 3rd and June 6th, 1980, another series of false warnings occurred. A faulty electronic component inserted incorrect numbers into warning messages, at times making computer displays appear to show a large Soviet missile attack. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, presented Cheyenne Mountain with a completely different problem.

Starting point is 00:13:34 NORAD had spent decades preparing primarily for attacks arriving from outside North America. The hijacked airliners of 9-11 were ordinary domestic aircraft turned into weapons from inside American airspace. Personnel inside Cheyenne Mountain suddenly had to help coordinate fighter responses to an unprecedented internal attack, while the Federal Aviation Administration attempted to identify and ground thousands of civilian aircraft. The mountain's massive blast doors were closed during the crisis. NORAD personnel have described September 11th as the only real-world contingency in the facility's history in which the doors were sealed. Ironically, the post-9-11 era eventually led to a reduction in Cheyenne Mountain's role as the everyday NORAD command center. Modern communications allows information from radar, satellites, and other sensors to be displayed virtually anywhere via secure connections.

Starting point is 00:14:33 Being buried inside a mountain also does have some disadvantages. Space was limited. Expanding offices was difficult. Workers had to travel through security and tunnels simply to reach their workplace. Maintaining specialized 1960s infrastructure was also expensive. But most importantly, the threat had changed. The everyday defense of North America, increasingly required constant coordination among military commands, intelligence agencies, civilian authorities, and emergency management organizations. An above-ground headquarters at nearby Peterson Air Force Base offered much greater flexibility. In 2006, NORAD and U.S. Northcom commander Admiral Timothy Keating

Starting point is 00:15:16 approved moving much of the routine surveillance and warning mission to Peterson Air Force Base. And that led to headlines suggesting that Cheyenne Milder, Mountain was being closed. Norad's ordinary command operations did move to Peterson, but the Mountain continued to operate as a hardened backup command center and to house military communications. Cheyenne Mountain was a product of one of the most dangerous periods of the Cold War, built on the assumption that the United States might someday have to keep operating after a nuclear attack. Although its role has changed, the complex has never truly become obsolete. More than 60 years after it was carved into granite,

Starting point is 00:15:57 Cheyenne Mountain still serves the purpose for which it was created, providing a protected place from which North America can be defended when everything else above ground has gone wrong. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show for on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the,

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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Cheyenne Mountain Complex

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