it's one of the largest underground military command centers in the world responsible for protecting the skies over North America capable of monitoring enemy missiles around the globe and in charge of deterring terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11 and it's buried deep inside a mountain this is NORAD the North American Aerospace Defense Command Center its state-of-the-art computer systems are linked to a worldwide early warning network of satellites sensors and radar NORAD's mission is to track all top secret intelligence transmitted from this sophisticated warning system but it's top priority is to use that intelligence to monitor the skies for incoming strikes against North America to assess potential threats and coordinate a military response giving us forces enough time to intercept or shoot down the enemy manning this mega-structure are about 1,500 military and civilian employees from the US and Canadian Armed Forces their motto is deter detect and defend the idea for a command center of this caliber first emerged during the tense nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union the need for NORAD became critically clear on the 29th of August 1949 where the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb at a test site in Kazakhstan America's position as the world's leading superpower was now in jeopardy to counter the possibility of a nuclear threat from the Soviets the United States and Canada combined their resources to form the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD by 1958 NORAD's detection system relied on a global network of 57 radar sites planted above the Arctic Circle this was called the distance early warning line or Dew line but NORAD's nuclear defense had an Achilles heel the headquarters itself NORAD was operating out of an old hospital in downtown Colorado Springs and although it was closed to other military facilities including a US Air Force Base the building built in 1923 was a vulnerable target the commander at the time said there's a problem here anybody driving by with a bazooka could knocked out this command center military officials were forced to rethink the location of NORAD's headquarters they needed a protected site and a structure that would be virtually indestructible the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in to design a state-of-the-art military fortress we needed something that would be able to survive a nuclear attack so that we could respond in kind and the Soviets would know that and therefore hopefully not attack us in the first place the Army Corps of Engineers had been the mastermind behind the Pentagon military complex 17 years earlier and America's top-secret missile silos in the 1950s but the concept for this mountain complex came at a time when engineering technology was relatively unsophisticated and limited in 1958 computers as we know them today had yet to be invented the engineers use slide rules when they built this facility the military designers proposed three potential locations for the mega structure they could dig out a concrete underground bunker like those constructed during World War two they could erect NORAD inside an abandoned mine or they could implement their most extreme design by carving out the inside of a mountain 2,000 feet of natural solid granite protection convinced the engineers to build NORAD deep within a mountain the next step was to find that mountain they began the search in their own backyard the Colorado Rockies and soon engineers had narrowed the choice to two sites the 9423 foot high Blodgett peak and the nine thousand five hundred and sixty-five foot Cheyenne Mountain to ensure they selected the best option engineers analyzed rock core samples from each mountain a process that could determine which one would offer the sturdiest protection for this unique underground mega structure helicopter pilots were hired to transport men generators and heavy core sampling equipment to the sites at each location survey crews drilled holes three inches in diameter and up to 1600 feet deep then using a borehole camera they photographed the rock structure inside the two mountains when they did the core samples in blodgett peak they discovered that there was a lot of water compared to Cheyenne Mountain they had much harder Rock and and much more consistent rock in Cheyenne Mountain because it had a more stable rock structure Cheyenne Mountain was selected as the future home of NORAD engineers now had to map out the construction project phase one was excavating tunnels chambers and reservoirs inside the mountain to create a five acre military installation big enough to hold five football fields phase two was to build a self-supporting city with 12 interlocking personnel buildings at its own water reservoirs fuel supply power plant and ventilation systems like the Pentagon this city would be open 24 hours a day staff would be stationed at roughly 800 desks and operate about a thousand computers NORAD would also contain amenities like a gym corner store and cafeteria many of the buildings exact details remained under wraps due to the high security protecting this top-secret facility but there was one characteristic that set this headquarters apart from other mega structures the ability to completely seal itself off in the event of a nuclear attack NORAD would have to be able to function and keep its personnel alive for 30 days without any support from the outside world for phase 3 of the NORAD military complex technical engineers would install a powerful scientific computer linked to a super surveillance system capable of monitoring missile activity around the globe NORAD was considered a level one facility meaning this structure would have the highest operational security available building this military headquarters presented a challenge unlike any that engineers of the time had previously faced 700,000 tons of granite had to be excavated from inside the mountain a weight equal to almost 4,000 commercial jets before construction of the buildings could even begin by late September 1959 two years after the initial conception of NORAD construction crews hit their first obstacle Engineers had positioned the north tunnel entrance a thousand feet above the base of the mountain but the site was so remote that men and machinery couldn't access it by land a four mile long road had to be planned and bulldozed before crews could start excavating the mountain it took more than two months to complete the road from its beginning in Colorado Springs to the end point a thousand feet up Cheyenne Mountain but by November 1959 just as the new road was almost ready to transport crews and equipment the entire project came to a screeching halt the roadblock this time was money Congress didn't approve additional funds for Nora at the beginning of 1960 with the threat of nuclear war still a frightening reality it looked as if America's answer would never be built in November 1959 all across the United States Americans were living under a nuclear threat the US government was building what it believed was America's only viable solution a top-secret military complex capable of seeing into every corner of the world but construction crews had only just finished the 1 million dollar access road when the government shut down the entire project estimates to complete the project ran at more than 26 million dollars military officials were constantly updating and resubmitting NORAD's initial plans it was another 16 months before Congress finally approved the design and funding of this underground mega structure and construction could begin again once the green light was given military officials staged a highly public groundbreaking ceremony for their top-secret fortress this was a message to the Soviets that the United States was taking the threat of nuclear war very seriously there was no secret what was secret at the time and remained secret really up until the 1980s was exactly how hardened that facility would be what kind of a nuclear blast could it survive on the 16th of June 1961 top military officials detonated the first blast three interrupted years after NORAD's preliminary design had been drafted construction finally began it started with a mammoth dig a crew of just 90 workers had one year to carve out five acres and remove 700,000 tons of granite to form two main tunnels and seven 60 foot tall cabins the equivalent of five and a half stories these holdout chambers would become the protective shell for NORAD's 12 interlocking staff buildings and three industrial structures including a power plant the total size would be a hundred and four thousand nine hundred and eighty square feet the two tunnels would lead to these buildings from opposite sides of the mountain the first job for the excavation crew was to blast out the tunnels from day one engineers faced one of their biggest hurdles how to keep thousands of tons of rock and debris from burying the whole project blasting was the fastest and cheapest way to excavate the granite - at NORAD attempted traditional blasting techniques with dynamite heavily packed into drilled holes but they soon realize that this method risk fracturing and loosening the rock in the worst case scenario it might cause the cabin ceiling to come crashing down on top of them crews needed to develop a more controlled way of blasting that would keep the walls intact dr. Paul wursy is a blasting expert who consulted on the NORAD mega-structure mercy shows how the traditional blasting method can cause a rock wall to crumble and cave in all these fractures here are blasting juste and it's really loosened up I can even pull the material off with my hands quite easily now if I could do that with a steel bar just imagine what the shock wave from a nuclear weapon can do to avoid a cave-in NORAD's explosives team used a new technique developed in 1956 called smooth wall blasting in this technique miners first calculate a blasting pattern by painting a series of arched lines on the granite walls poles are then carefully drilled along those lines and loosely packed with large sticks of dynamite the timing is crucial each arch must be detonated from the inside out in a precisely choreographed sequence on the outer arches the rock shears off cleanly leaving behind a smooth wall dr. wursy demonstrates NORAD's smooth wall blasting technique with everyone at a safe distance from the site the countdown begins there's no collapse nice fairly smooth wall hardly any cracking on holes at all fewer cracks means a more stable wall which was exactly what NORAD's blasters and engineers finally achieved at Cheyenne Mountain in the autumn of 1961 if they had not used these very innovative carefully planned mining techniques blasting techniques the chances of having facilities that would survive a nuclear blast would have been minimal the excavation crews still had to meet their deadline of June 1962 so blast has worked in three shifts around-the-clock six days a week attacking the mountain from both ends the design plan called for the two tunnel crews to meet at a central juncture point there they would excavate the main cavity for NORAD's 15 buildings on the south side of the mountain one team bought the access tunnel for NORAD's ventilation system it was two thousand six hundred and sixty eight feet long and seventeen and a half feet high on the north side another team blasted out the megastructures main entrance this was a shorter tunnel 1416 feet long and 22 and a half feet high blasting digging and carving out tunnels thousands of feet long through a mountain took time no one knew for certain if the command post would be completed before there was a Soviet attack on the 13th of August 1961 the Soviets started to build the Berlin Wall and three weeks later they began to test a whole new generation of nuclear bombs the workers at NORAD were now in a race to deter a hostile superpower just three months after their start date the workers reached a milestone on the 7th of October 1961 crews from the North and South tunnels met together they'd carved through four thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet of solid ground it was a monumental achievement but the tunnels were just the prelude to the main event digging out NORAD seven central chambers would be an even tougher job and the crew had just eight more months to finish the entire excavation it was a daunting task and in the heart of the mountain where the chambers would be hollowed out engineers were about to hit another major obstacle one that would threatened to derail the entire multi-million dollar project on the 30th of October 1961 the Soviets tested the most powerful atomic weapon ever built it was the 57 Megaton Tsar Bomba nearly 4,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima 16 years earlier the blast had repercussions halfway around the world at Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain where engineers were constructing a command post that had to be able to withstand a nuclear blast working around-the-clock construction crews had carved out more than six million cubic feet of rock for NORAD 7:00 central chambers but three months into the dig engineers uncovered a dangerous weakness in the mountains geological structure what they discovered were huge fractures above the three main chambers meaning that even the vibrations of a small earthquake could potentially cause the entire cavern to collapse engineers needed to address this new risk or terminate the entire project they went back to the original blueprints and came up with a radical proposition they decided to rotate the Chamber's 70 degrees and reposition the entire excavation project in this new design the cracks over the future buildings became shorter minimizing the effects of an earthquake or nuclear blast if they had not changed from the original plan for that portion of the excavation it's likely that a you would have had problems with caving Rock or B if there had been a nuclear attack the vibrations to the entire mountain would cause that to collapse with the revamped design complete construction crews were now ready to carve out the five reservoirs four of the reservoirs would hold a total of six million gallons of water enough to fill more than 20 Olympic sized swimming pools the fifth reservoir would hold 500,000 gallons of diesel fuel the surplus would run the six generators that provided NORAD's power with the reservoirs complete construction crews were just a few months away from their June 1962 deadline for excavation but soon the mountains natural elements presented another challenge for NORAD's blasters Engineers discovered that large sections of the mountain were filled with water so much in fact the miners couldn't possibly pump it all out too much water is a nightmare for blasters creating fractures in the rock and miners have no control over the way fractured rock explodes the miners were forced to find another type of explosive they tried out a compound called slurry made from ammonium nitrate slurry can be molded to fit any crevice so it can fill a hole that's cracked but blasting away tons of rock would weaken the mountain structure so engineers decided to secure an or adds on stable granite roof with giant steel rods called rock vaults measuring between six and 32 feet in length these metal dowels would provide critical structural support Rock bolts are really important in tunneling because they're a method of stabilizing the roof we actually pin loose pieces of roof to stabilize them workers installed the steel rods into the walls and ceilings of the chambers the tip of each bolt had an 8-inch split that held a steel wedge compression drove the wedge into the steel rod spreading its tip and anchoring the bolt against the surrounding rock crews inserted bolts four feet apart throughout the chambers and tunnels each bolt was then tightened against a steel plate on the surface of the rock but as the miners continued to carve out more chambers they discovered that another natural element was also weakening the rock cabin around them volcanic rock called basalt softer than granite vassal deteriorates and falls apart when exposed to air so the miners decided to spray the rock with a concrete mixture called gunite this hardens into a solid wall and would therefore prevent the granite from deteriorating with all these unexpected complications the construction crews struggle to stay on schedule people were working six days a week basically around the clock and they knew the national defense possibly national survival dependent on doing this job quickly and doing it right finally on the 18th of June 1962 just two days after their deadline workers finished the dig phase 1 excavating the mountain was complete almost a billion pounds of rock had been removed from Cheyenne Mountain enough to fill 23,000 dump trucks engineers were now ready to start phase two of the monolithic mega structure constructing NORAD's 12 personnel buildings and three industrial structures six generators and a complex ventilation system would also have to be installed inside Cheyenne Mountain but what the engineers didn't know was that their plans were about to be turned upside down by the unexpected fallout from a dangerous new weapon by July 1962 construction crews working 2,000 feet inside Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain had carved out more than five acres of granite to make way for one of the most important mega structures in military history engineers had already completed the designs for 15 buildings that could withstand a nuclear blast the NORAD mountain fortress would be America's first line of defense against enemy threats but new advances in weapons technology were threatening to neutralize the whole project on the 9th of July 1962 more than 200 miles above the Pacific Ocean the US detonated a high-altitude bomb in a nuclear weapons test an unexpected byproduct of this explosion was a newly discovered phenomenon called an electromagnetic pulse or EMP an EMP generated 200 miles above Kansas could [ __ ] the entire United States by preventing electronic devices from functioning and NORAD depended upon electronics operating around the clock to successfully accomplish its mission of surveillance back at Cheyenne Mountain engineers realized that even thousands of feet of granite would offer no protection at all against an electromagnetic pulse the one substance that could ward off the destructive pulse was metal like a lightning rod metal directs electromagnetic pulses to the ground but shielding all of NORAD's wires and computers in metal was impossible if there was even a single gap in the shield the pulse could short out the entire complex just as engineers prepared to erect NORAD's buildings in February 1963 they came up with a solution they would construct the building's themselves entirely out of metal to ground of the path of the pulse thick steel walls were brought inside the structure in sections the only way to fit them through the tunnel opening once inside they were welded together at the seams these steel walls would protect NORAD's sensitive electronic systems by transferring an incoming electromagnetic pulse through the metal to the ground where it would be absorbed and neutralized actual construction on NORAD steel buildings began in March 1963 but seven months later the engineers hit another wall they determined that a geological fault in the roof of the main chamber would not withstand a nuclear detonation they thought this problem had been solved when they pivoted the planned structure almost two years earlier during the excavation phase but they were wrong even though they re oriented the complex there was still a crack over a part of that complex that caused a great deal of concern under this crack was the proposed site of NORAD's most important building the command center home to crucial monitoring and surveillance systems so engineers came up with a new plan they would install a giant concrete shell 50 feet in diameter just inches below the main chambers granite ceiling its purpose would be to prevent NORAD's future three-story command center from being buried under tons of crumbling rock the enormous dome ranging from 4 to 14 feet thick was made from steel reinforced concrete it would be supported by four massive three-story high concrete columns it was so large that it had to be fabricated outside the mountain and transported through NORAD's tunnel entrance in pieces workers used hydraulic jacks to reassemble it inside the mountain lifting it into place on top of the columns to stabilize it further the dome was fused to the cabins ceiling six months later the dome was assembled and in place the construction of NORAD's main buildings was now the top priority but there was still one other menacing phenomenon to tackle in a nuclear blast the mountain would transmit shockwaves directly to the building's injuring people and damaging sensitive computers to combat these waves engineers came up with their own version of shock absorbers giant Springs three feet tall nearly two feet wide weighing half a ton each 1319 Springs would protect NORAD's buildings from shock waves this was a first in engineering history no other structure had ever employed such an innovative shock absorption technique step-by-step work on the rough steel structure of NORAD's interior buildings continued when complete the buildings were all interconnected to form a basic grid pattern it was inside this building the command Operations Center the technicians eventually installed the brains of NORAD its global surveillance system in adjoining buildings workers constructed other features of the mega structure including a medical clinic and a shot in April 1964 workers were 14 months into building NORAD's self-supporting city the 15 buildings were complete and crews now began work on the support systems first they built the power plant that would run the entire command post at its heart was six turbocharged diesel engines the same kind used to power battleships together they could generate 10 megawatts of electricity enough to power more than a thousand households next crews loaded fuel and water into the five reservoirs they'd already carved out one reservoir held one-and-a-half million gallons of water for drinking and cooking in the three and a half years since NORAD's first official blast of dynamite workers had overcome all kinds of obstacles but the NORAD facility was still vulnerable to one lethal menace radiation from nuclear fallout by early 1965 the first two phases of the NORAD command center were near completion the tunnels interlocking buildings for water reservoirs fuel supply reservoir power plant and ventilation system had all been constructed but before the third and final phase could begin installing the technical equipment that would be the brains of this military mega structure one last detail had to be addressed in the event of a nuclear explosion damaging shockwaves and thermal radiation would be able to enter NORAD through three routes the air intake delay ducts and the two tunnels the tunnels were designed as blow away areas shockwaves would travel in one way and out the other but the air ducts led directly into the NORAD complex if a thermonuclear shock wave got through these ducts it could destroy the buildings the solution was to create a safeguard called a blast valve NORAD has 58 of them weighing 8,500 pounds each inside this four foot wide tube is a moveable seal that opens and closes the valve in the event of a nuclear blast this creates a change of air pressure in less than half a second NORAD's blast valves automatically seal the air intake ducts leading directly to the facility the contaminated air is then forced to go through a filtration system called a CBR filter the pressure that comes in is forced to those filters where we ensure that no radiation no chemical agents or biological agents could get through into the complex but there was one more weakness at NORAD that engineers needed to address the entrance doors into the complex located along the tunnels they had to be able to seal off the facility during a nuclear blast for this engineers borrowed from a different design the inspiration for their solution was a typical bank vault door engineers created a mega version they called a blast door it's three and a half feet thick and weighs fifty thousand pounds hydraulic motors push a series of steel pins into the doorframe for a lock more secure than any bank vault like the blast valves the blast doors closed automatically when a nuclear explosion creates a change in air pressure with a lockdown system in place NORAD was now equipped to seal itself off in the event of a nuclear war the complex would stock enough water fuel and food including 72,000 meals to continue its mission for a full 30 days without any help from the outside by late autumn 1965 all of NORAD's 15 buildings were assembled the first two phases of construction were complete it was now time to launch the final phase of the project installing the early warning and surveillance system inside the command center of the new NORAD mega structure although the details of this intelligence were classified NORAD made no secret of its primary mission to track aircraft and missiles launched by known or suspected enemies it would be up to those Manning this mega-structure to identify any airborne weapons entering North America's airspace phase three was a massive undertaking and computer experts were in a constant race against advancing technology but by the start of January 1966 the job was done a Philco 200 s computer was installed at NORAD's command Operations Center one of the fastest scientific supercomputers of its time in the world the brains of NORAD were off and running at Cheyenne Mountain on the 20th of April 1966 more than six years after construction began the NORAD command center closed up its old headquarters in downtown Colorado Springs and open for business in size Cheyenne Mountain the entire project cost 142 million dollars the equivalent of more than eighteen billion dollars today hundreds of civilians work at NORAD alongside 600 enlisted personnel from the US Army Air Force Navy Marines and Canadian military from air men to brigadier General's NORAD is busy day and night fully staffed in 8-hour shifts seven days a week 24 hours a day the cafeteria serves four meals every day including one at midnight for those working the night shift the underground work environment is unique there are no windows at NORAD in fact the entire complex has a no frills design that's been compared to the lower levels of a battleship there are people who find it very difficult to work in this environment if you never see the Sun you never feel the breeze never see changes in temperature can be very difficult the government was very thorough in outfitting this mega structure NORAD was a statement to the world in particular to Soviet bloc that the United States could be attacked but fed reply with a big stick for 20 years NORAD scanned America's borders for airborne attacks from the Soviet superpower then in November 1989 the u.s. is greatest foe and NORAD's primary reason for being came tumbling down the Soviet Union the enemy that moved North America to build an indestructible fortress in the first place collapsed the Cold War officially came to an end many people thought that nor it with cold war being over and there's being less of a potential possibility of an attack from the outside that NORAD was obsolete ok but as the world situation changed so did the mission of NORAD NORAD then expanded its mission of global surveillance to include missile threats from rogue nations like North Korea and Iran soldiers watched and warned of missile attacks from terrorists anywhere in the world it was a mission that depended on complete overhauls it'll be like a Volkswagen it always looked the same for years and years but they kept fine-tuning the engine they would change some things on the inside etc well that was what they said about the mountain well the mountain will always look the same from the outside but we'll be fine-tuning it and be changing it in the inside to adapt to current needs these needs require the brains of NORAD its top-secret supercomputer to be constantly upgraded and updated even though NORAD surveillance systems were powerful enough to detect a four inch long object in the Earth's orbit the command post wasn't prepared for the tragedies of the 11th of September 2001 on the morning of 9/11 we received intelligence that there might be an airliner specifically headed for Cheyenne Mountain we close the blast doors that date the attack on NORAD turned out to be a false alarm but the terrorist attacks of 9/11 forced NORAD to update its role and mission once again it was imperative that they revamp the center to prepare for and more importantly prevent unpredictable acts of violence from future terrorism threat has become much more asymmetrical and by that I mean terrorism is out there now the threat is no longer a bear but it's a ball of snakes on the 4th of March 2005 NORAD officials unveiled their largest renovation since the mountain fortress first opened in 1966 their newly refurbished command center it was rebuilt within the existing rock chamber carved out more than four decades earlier what you're about to see will show you we no longer need Hollywood to make our mission appear state-of-the-art and functional for its missions ladies and gentlemen it's our pleasure to announce we are now officially open for business this 15 million dollar project took 17 months to build and double the command center size in today's post 9/11 world NORAD is a state-of-the-art facility that now features the latest in detection surveillance and warning technology any missile was launched anywhere in the world will be detected by satellites and possibly by radar systems and they're all tied into one global warning computer system that we're able to monitor here in the missile correlation Center station most individuals are coming out of this out state first base tools phone as a Central Command headquarters NORAD's job is to assess the threat and coordinate the military force necessary to intercept or destroy the enemy officials now keep an even closer watch over the skies above their homeland every day more than 10,000 aircraft are in the air over the US and ever since the unforeseen airborne attacks of 9/11 any one of those planes could be a lethal weapon we are the agency of last resort and we really don't want to be involved and if we are then it's gone too far already that said a quiet day here is a good day NORAD's mountain fortress was built to pass the ultimate test to survive a nuclear catastrophe a test it may never face because it's fulfilled its missions so well this is the most secure place you can be anywhere in the world it's a remarkable claim for a stronghold that's almost 40 years old the engineers who designed it had a unique vision to build a garrison where people could see out into every corner of the world but where no one could see in me hidden beneath 2,000 feet of solid granite this military complex has faced many challenges over the years including the rapid progress of computer technology the unpredictable nature of an almost 2 mile high mountain and the persistent threat of random acts of terrorism but NORAD has kept pace with cutting-edge advances in global warfare this military mega structure keeps a constant watch over the safety of America and the world you
