Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/01/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Brings back memories of the "Golfballs" on Fylingdales Moor in Yorkshire - always a spectacular sight when driving over the moors road from Pickering to Whitby. Sadly replaced by a funny looking pyramid, doesn't look half as sci-fi as the three enormous, very spooky, white golfballs (revealed recently as one of the key targets for Soviet ICBMs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fylingdales Cheers Douglas On 19.01.2013 13:04, Geoff Hopkinson wrote: > Very interesting Howard and Herbert. > Now I also know that "DEFCON " was not just a word made up for movies and > technothrillers. > > *If you want to take more interesting pictures, > stand in front of more interesting stuff* -- Joe McNally > > Cheers > Geoff > http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman > > > On 19 January 2013 18:07, Howard Ritter <hlritter at bex.net> wrote: > >> Another part of the defense system during the Cold War (and now) is the >> USAF Spacetrack System and the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System >> (BMEWS). I was part of this as a junior USAF officer from 1967 to 1971, >> first at a satellite-tracking radar at Moorestown, NJ and later at BMEWS >> at >> Thule Air Base, Greenland. Since Herb opened the door to photos of >> electronic technology of this era, here's my offering. >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Cold+War+Space+Radar/ >> >> The AN/FPS-49 was the prototype that RCA developed for the USAF to use as >> a tracker at the BMEWS sites in Greenland and Alaska. The tracker would >> lock in on suspicious space objects picked up by the huge detection >> radars, >> giving much finer information about the object's trajectory in order to >> decide whether it represented a threat (i.e., could be an ICBM). >> Invariably >> (needless to say!) these turned out to be low-orbiting or re-entering >> satellites. After development the prototype, on the grounds of RCA in >> Moorestown, was put into use by the Air Force to track satellites in order >> to maintain up-to-date orbital elements for the benefit of BMEWS. This was >> the 17th Surveillance Squadron on Moorestown Air Force Installation, quite >> possibly the smallest patch of land in the whole Air Force inventory, >> about >> the size of two football fields IIRC. It was my first Air Force assignment >> out of ROTC. >> >> Leica M2X, Canon 50/2 collapsible, available-light, handheld except for >> the nocturnal time exposure. Scanned from Ektachrome shot in 1969. >> >> ?howard >> >> >> On Jan 18, 2013, at 11:51 PM, Herbert Kanner <kanner at acm.org> wrote: >> >>> In the early 1950's, there what was called the "Cold War". With the >> realization the that Soviet Union had nuclear weapons and bombers capable >> of getting here via the North Pole without refueling, some kind of defense >> system became mandatory. The SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) >> System, a multi-billion dollar system was developed. It had twenty one >> main >> sites. The computers, which received radar information and then directed >> fighter places, had forty-nine thousand vacuum tubes. Because this system >> was to be operational 24/7, each site had two such computers, and the >> magnetic drum memory units in the two were updated often enough so that >> they could switch computers and the guys on what looked like radar >> displays >> wouldn't know that they had switched. Here is the console of one computer. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >