Tours of NORAD? Huh?

Actually, up until recently, there were regular tours of NORAD, just like there are tours of the White House and Pentagon.

Now days, you have to know someone to get in for one.

It's kind of like some of the movie studios that don't have official tours. If you know someone who works there, you can usually get a guest pass for a tour.

i thought it was a plot hole as well. but apparently not. you can contact the Public Affairs Office in Cheyenne Mountain to request a tour, at least in recent years. i don't know why this heavily secure government/military installation would allow visitors and non-essential personnel onto the premises. tours of the White House and Pentagon don't give access to EVERYTHING, like the President's bedroom, but it would seem that everything in the NORAD station would be top secret.

I agree. I don't think there were tours during the cold war. Especially into the area that David was able to join the group in. Maybe you could look at the blast door back then.
I think the best evidence is that the producers of this film wanted to see it to build a more accurate set. The set they did build was NORADS "wet dream" since they had to use their imagination.

My tour with the scouts in the 1990's got us in:
-bus from visitor center to outside gate, through the carved tunnel to a bus parking inside, which is opposite the blast door, walking tour from there, through corridors to view office 'buildings' mounted on huge shock springs, the water supply, the generator system, miles of cables and vent ductwork, up to a conference room, which had curtained windows looking at the next room over which- was NOTHING like the movie. Simply a data-center Network Operations Center, three rows of long counters like TV news desks and lines of monitors, and a wall of bigscreen monitors.

That was about it.

NORAD now uses Cheyenne Mountain for a 'cold' site. The actual operations is in the area of one of four military bases in the El Paso County area. No tours at the new site.