Soaring 150 feet toward the Colorado sky, the Air Force Academy Chapel is an all-faiths house of worship designed to meet the spiritual needs of cadets. It contains a separate chapel for four major religious faiths Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Buddhist plus an all-faiths room used by Muslim cadets and available for members of the other faiths as well. There are two main levels, with the Protestant nave on the upper level and the Catholic, Jewish, and Buddhist chapels as well as the all-faiths room located beneath it. Each chapel has its own entrance, and services may be held simultaneously without interfering with one another.
The aluminum, glass and steel structure features 17 spires. There is no significance to this number. Original designs were too expensive, so changes were made, among them a reduction in the number of spires. The changes did not alter the basic design or the interior square footage of the chapel, however.
The chapel structure cost $3.5 million to build. Furnishings, pipe organs, liturgical fittings and adornments of the chapel were presented as gifts from individuals, organizations, and donations from Easter offerings made at Air Force bases.