

GETTY IMAGES A bus enters a tunnel for a half-mile trip to a command center located deep within the Cheyenne Mountain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains near Colorado Springs. Built in the 1960s to withstand a direct nuclear strike, the station sits atop springs and behind a pair of giant blast doors that can seal out contamination. Critics say a decision to move the operations center of the North American Aerospace Defense Command to the basement of an office building on Peterson Air Force Base and to disperse other missions at the mountain could undermine U.S. national security.