Deep Underground Support Center

The Deep Underground Support Center (DUSC) was a Strategic Air Command nuclear bunker proposal in 1962 for "a hardened command post...to withstand a 100-megaton weapon with a 0.5 n.m. CEP".[1] Favored for a mine near Cripple Creek, Colorado (west of the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker started in 1961), the DUSC was to be 3,500 ft (1,100 m) deep and be "able to accommodate some 200 people for [30 days] to handle the large volume of data processing and analysis required for strike assessment, as well as follow-on strike and other decisions."[2]:325 Cost estimates for the SAC Control System facility increased to $200 million, and when the operational year slipped from 1965 to 1969, SAC decided in 1963 "for a long-endurance, all airborne concept instead" (Wainstein), and the JCS and OSD concurred with the DUSC project cancellation.[3]

Not to be confused with the Deep Underground Command Center (DUCC) proposed near Washington and "closely patterned" on the SAC DUSC proposal.

References
  1. Wainstein cites: Historical and Research Division, Strategic Air Command, History of the Strategic...1962
  2. Wainstein, L. (Part 1, Part 4, Project Leader); Cremeans, C.D. (Part 4); Moriarty, J. K. (Part 2); Ponturo, J. (Part 3) (June 1975). The Evoluition of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning, 1945-1972 (Report). Study S-467. Institute for Defense Analyses.
  3. Wainstein cites: Deputy Secretary of Defense (5 February 1962), Deep Underground National Command Center (declassified "Memorandum for DDR&E"), Office of the Secretary of Defense and a Joint Chiefs of Staff "Draft Memorandum for the President": National Deep Underground Command Post, 7 November 1963, TOP SECRET.

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