events of Galactic Patrol. Locations Prime Base Prime Base is the tremendous military base that first grew from "The Hill", a man-made, flat-topped, steel sheathed mountain that was the main base of first, the Triplanetary Service, and then of the new Galactic Patrol on Tellus. During the time of the First Lensman when it was still "The Hill", it was attacked by pirates working for Boskone, but thanks to the efforts of its fleet and its own very strong defenses, it survived without coming to any harm. Later in First Lensman Prime Base was moved to New York Space Port. If it remained there is not revealed in First Lensman or in the later books. At the beginning of the third book, Galactic Patrol, it is referred to only as the "Prime Base of Tellus", but its location is not stated. Prime Base has a large number of functions including housing the office of the Port Admiral, facilities with the ability to construct warships for the Galactic Patrol, and a variety of scientific labs for scientists that work there. It is hinted within the series that, rather than a Military-Industrial Complex such as evolved in our society, almost all military research and production is managed by civilian employees of the Galactic Patrol, rather than by independent contractors. Earth's financial contribution to the Galactic Patrol is paid by a 3.6% income tax "in the highest brackets," distributed across the entire planet, making the financial resources of the Patrol—even in wartime—roughly equivalent to 10% of Earth's GDP; (in 2008 terms that would be almost $1.5 trillion from the Earth alone.) Internal evidence in the series may lead the modern reader to believe that The Hill/Prime Base is the evolved form of North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado. However, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, initiated in 1961, postdates the publication of the Lensman novels, and is location in a different region of the US. A passage in Triplanetary says The Hill is in "the heart of the Rockies", just "over the western ranges of the Bitter Roots" With the discovery of Lundmark's Nebula (the "second Galaxy"), the Galactic Patrol built Ultra Prime base on Klovia - a far stronger version of Prime Base, though it never replaced Prime Base in terms of overall importance. Ultra Prime Ultra-Prime is the immensely well-protected fortress that is the Galactic Patrol's