NORAD OPERATIONS CENTRE
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN
COLORADO

Opened in 1962, the Cheyenne Mountain centre is a hugely sophisticated underground complex linked to a worldwide network of US radars and other electronic sensors capable of detecting, assessing and co-ordinating responses to any airborne or space-based threat to the United States or its overseas forces anywhere in the world.
Within the complex separate control centres, each reporting to the Command Director, monitor events within their specialist fields. These centres include the Space Control Centre, the Missile Warning Centre, the Battle Management Centre and the Combined Intelligence Watch Centre.
Totally self-sufficient under threat conditions, the centre can support an emergency staff of 800 for a minimum of thirty days. Backup power is provided by five 1 megawatt diesel alternator sets.

Access to the underground complex is via a long tunnel bored through the mountain. Huge 30-ton blast doors let into the wall of the tunnel (left) would seal off the Centre from the blast wave of a nearby nuclear detonation, which will pass right through the tunnel.