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". Favored for a mine near Cripple Creek, Colorado (west of the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker started in 1961), the DUSC was to be 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." 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.
A 1964 geologic assessment by the MITRE Corporation, prepared for the US Air Force, identified and detailed thirteen potential sites that were suitable for a DUSC located under at least 5000 ft (1,500 m) of cover. The studied locations included Mount Washington, New Hampshire; Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid, New York; the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona; Cleveland Mountain near Skykomish, Washington; a mountain along Icicle Creek near Leavenworth, Washington; the Chugach Mountains near Chickaloon, Alaska; and Granite Mountain near Big Delta, Alaska.