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Underground, an electronic marvel

Broadcast Date: Nov. 13, 1960

Norad's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Centre, buried deep in a mountainside in Colorado is a legendary fortress. But Canada has its own underground Norad nerve centre. Near North Bay, Ont., a giant base is being carved out deep into the solid granite of the Canadian Shield. Almost 200 metres below the surface, engineers are excavating a chamber to hold SAGE (Semi Automated Ground Environment) — "the most sophisticated defence system world has ever known."

Underground, an electronic marvel

• Norad's headquarters are at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. It is commanded from the nearby Cheyenne Mountain Operations Centre, which also houses U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command.
• The Cheyenne facility is an amazing underground complex of 15 buildings buried deep in the mountain. The location was selected because it is geographically centred in North America, has low seismic activity, and because of the nearby military base.

• Construction of the Cheyenne facility began in 1961, and was completed in 1966. It cost $142 million. The entire facility is built on top of 1,319 giant springs, which can insulate the complex from an earthquake or nuclear blast. The facility's main blast doors weigh 25 tons and are made of steel one metre thick. They can be closed in 30 seconds.

• The North Bay facility, though smaller, was still an engineering marvel. Nicknamed "The Hole," it consisted of four huge underground chambers: two for the SAGE computer system, one for a huge diesel power plant and one for water. The estimated cost at the time of this broadcast was $12 million.

• The SAGE system (Semi Automated Ground Environment) was used to track enemy aircraft from the 1950s to 1980s. It was essentially a giant air traffic control computer, which would handle communications between multiple radar sites and defence facilities. The goal was to detect incoming threats and dispatch jet interceptors and anti-aircraft missiles with maximum efficiency.
• Cost estimates of SAGE run between $8 and 12 billion US (1964); more than the cost of developing the atom bomb.

• By the time SAGE was up and running, missiles — which the system was incapable of intercepting — had replaced bombers as the primary threat. Nonetheless, SAGE was considered a groundbreaking achievement in computing. It used real-time computing to analyze radar data, and modems for data transfer. The machinery was provided by IBM, helping solidify their market dominance.

Underground, an electronic marvel

Medium: Television

Program: Newsmagazine

Broadcast Date: Nov. 13, 1960

Guest(s):

Host: Stanley Burke

Duration: 1:49

Last updated:
Dec. 23, 2004