Star Trek NSA Facility: Take A Tour Inside The ‘Information Dominance Center’ [Photos]

Is there a better place to woo politicians than the Starship Enterprise? NSA chief Keith Alexander certainly doesn’t think so. A Star Trek inspired facility was built by the NSA in 2001 and has been used in the past to woo top policymakers.

Alexander oversaw the construction of the Star Trek inspired NSA facility from 2001 to 2003. The facility is known as “The Information Dominance Center.”

Shane Harris writes at Foreign Policy that the Information Dominance Center was designed by a Hollywood set designer. The facility included huge TV monitors, computer stations, and even a door that went “whoosh” when it opened. Of course, the facility also included the Starship Enterprise’s famous captain’s chair.

A retired officer in charge of VIP visits told Foreign Policy: “Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard.”

Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian has a little more information about the NSA’s Star Trek facility. After digging through the DBI Architects website (which is currently experiencing a high volume of traffic), The Guardian found a few photos of the futuristic facility.

DBI Architects say that the Information Dominance Center is 10,740 square feet. The center of the facility is the captain’s chair which is positioned to “provide the commanding officer an uninterrupted field of vision to a 22?-0? wide projection screen.”

Here are a few photos from the Star Trek inspired NSA facility.

The facility was designed to be a “highly classified, ultramodern operations center… The futuristic, yet distinctly military, setting is further reinforced by the Commander’s console, which gives the illusion that one has boarded a star ship.”

Do you think the NSA’s Star Trek facility is awesome? A complete waste of money?