"SKYNET"
FYI, and because you should know....
http://www.goingfaster.com/term2029/skynet.html {worth a good read}
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CONTROLLED NETWORK DEFENSE COMPUTER SYSTEM
Recent breakthroughs in advanced microchip design and computer processing power were the impetus that led to America’s first military grade neural net based artificial intelligence, SKYNET.
The SKYNET project was constructed in the mid 1990’s and would interface and coordinate all of America’s strategic arsenal into one cohesive command structure.
The SKYNET project was located well below the surface of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado; the original home of the North American Defense (NORAD) Command.
SKYNET would integrate with and ultimately supersede all NORAD authority and administration. The project took five and a half years to complete (1991 to 1997), displaced over two hundred thousand tons of rock hewn from the inner mountain, included over a million miles of fiber optic cable, and had an expenditure of almost a hundred billion dollars. A full time staff of six hundred and eighty-five personnel were on hand to monitor and guide SKYNET once it came online and to handle the various and sundry aspects that the artificial intelligence could not.
SKYNET’s integral components were designed to be shielded by several hundred feet of solid natural rock at the heart of the mountain, its central processing core rested on a hydraulically stabilized mount which could withstand the seismic shock and pressure of a seventy-five megaton direct hit against the mountain surface.
Backup and redundant systems were constructed in triplicate, running in non-parallel fashion to prevent multiple systems from being lost to a single first strike or follow up strikes. SKYNET was hardened and shielded against all forms of radiation and its next generation fiber optic processing made it immune to the threat of EMP. The central processing core was self healing, with multiple logic fortresses and data survival bunkers. The entire system could suffer up to 90% operating capacity loss through software failure and up to 70% hardware failure and still recover. Satellite links allowed SKYNET to upload its data to orbital assets, thereby offering terrestrial and near orbit recovery capacity in the event of system failure or damage from attack.
Two General Electric Model 12AA 500 megawatt throughput nuclear fusion reactors (total power production rated at one gigawatt) were also constructed deep underground, in hollowed out caverns which were artificially reinforced and component armored, to keep SKYNET supplied with enough power to operate as well as to provide energy for the newly installed ground and internal defense grids which protected the computer as well as the complex itself. A vast underground natural spring was tapped into by the Army Corps of Engineers to provide not only the raw material for fuel, the cooling needed for the hydrogen distillery plant and the reactors, but also to provide the base with a supply of fresh water that would be unaffected by any conceivable nuclear exchange. With the two General Electric nuclear fusion reactors online, power was not a concern, even given SKYNET’s planned upgrades and the continuation of the development of the installation.
SKYNET had been built with a sense of conservation applied to its overall programming. it was a miser, using the bare minimum assets required to do the job right the first time, conserving its assets and using them in the most efficient manner possible. This was the first hint that the computer had been built to think long term, to think proactively rather than reactively. SKYNET was intended to play a global game of political power, and to stay one step ahead of America’s enemies, to counter their moves before they even made them, and to always stand vigilant in defense of not only the mainland, but America’s allies as well. To that end, SKYNET was designed and prepared to integrate fluidly and flawlessly with attendant pseudo-super processor arrays in friendly NATO countries. SKYNET could extend itself, casting an image of its awareness, into these foreign arrays to coordinate NATO defense not only locally, but regionally and even globally. SKYNET could partition itself as needed, subdividing its processing power as required.
