An American Odyssey: Cheyenne Mountain

Luckily enough, by relation (and passing a security clearance), I got to visit the Cheyenne Mountain Air Defence Complex.

At the height of the Cold War, the chaps at the (poorly named) Department of Defence thought it would be a cracking good idea to their air defence complex inside a mountain.

After checking out a few places they decided on Colorado Springs. Excavation began by private contractors and then the navy came in to fit it out welded steel rooms.

The idea being that they place could keep running after the first wave of Russian missiles to make sure the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) agreement could be maintained.

This of course seems highly adolescent these days and you could never do it again - you would never get the environmental permission, it infringes on the Native Title of too many people and, in today's money, it would cost around 20 billion big ones.

Regardless today it is still running and could withstand a fair amount of nuclear, biological and chemical battering. There is enough supplies to keep those inside safe from harm for about a month.

Since September 11th their brief has been expanded to include monitoring all domestic and international flights within all North American Airspace.

You drive up to the car park and get into a bus that take you the rest of the way up the hill. From there you get a briefing all about the history and workings of station. Then you head around to security where men with guns put you through metal detectors and make sure you are not carrying anything nasty including cameras and mobile phones (they seem a bit shy).

From there you get in another bus which drives you into a hole in the side of the mountain. This takes you about 3/4 of a mile down a tunnel where you get out and go through the huge blast doors.

Beyond those, is not a giant "Bat Cave" as you might imagine but a series of huge tunnels with about fifteen buildings on springs to prevent the place being shaken up by a possible blast.

There is a whole self contained community below with gym, fire trucks, hospital, water supply, generators and canteen.

We were even more fortunate to see the central command room - something out of "Dr. Stranglove": lots of computers, wood panelling and giant screens. I was shocked to see them watching Fox News.

It is definitely a high stress job for these guys. Anything that flies over North America has to be identified, tracked, its source found and a decision has to be made on whether it is going to go off bang.

Not for me, but I suppose it has to be done.