AN/FPS-24 Radar Tower, Mt. Umunhum, Los Gatos, CA, 2024.
Several additional pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53796724938
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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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This is a stitched imaged made from two captures with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 HR-Digaron-W lens, Phase One IQ4-150 digital back (@ ISO 50), and a Cambo WRS 1250 camera, shifted left/right 15mm, producing a 230MP final image.
The full resolution (16152x14043) version is finally up on Flickr. There had been a bug preventing the upload of very large images there, which had forced me to use a large (but reduced size, 100MP) version as a placeholder there.
From 1958 through 1980, this incongruous four story (82 foot) monolith was the centerpiece of the "Almaden Air Force Station", a long-range radar site that was part of NORAD's SAGE early warning system. The blast-hardened concrete building served as the platform for an FPS-24 radar system, a massive 120 foot wide reflector that emitted a 5 megawatt VHF pulse, continuously rotating at 5 RPM.
Notoriously, the signal disrupted TV and radio reception throughout the San Jose area.
It's unclear if the SAGE system would have actually been effective in detecting incoming bombers, which presumably would have employed radar jammers. Fortunately, we never found out.
The antenna was removed shortly after the site's decommissioning in 1980, but the building, a prominent local landmark visible from downtown San Jose, has been preserved.
I have mixed feelings about these cold war relics. On the one hand, they're artifacts of what was perhaps humanity's most dangerous folly to date, locking the world in a deadly game where the stakes only went up with each round. This doesn't seem like something to commemorate or celebrate.
On the other hand, these objects, many now destroyed or decayed, serve as visible evidence of just how close to oblivion we are willing to go. And looked at from the right angle, they have stories to tell.
@[email protected] We might approach the nuclear precipice again if we ever returned to a situation of two rival zero-sum systems, one or other of which inevitably had to die. Fortunately Kennan was right that Communism could be contained and eventually outlasted.
@[email protected] I lived through that era, telling younger friends about it now there is a disconnect as it is abstract. At least these relics make it real for them, maybe (hopefully) making some of my current paranoia and political “take” seem slightly more, well, justified.
@[email protected] It now seems hard to believe that for the first 50% of my life I lived with an entirely rational background fear that all of civilization might end at any moment with less than 30 minutes notice, possibly by accident.
I lack the vocabulary to describe it adequately.
@[email protected] @[email protected]
I was an Army brat. At 8 years I dreaded the drills, because I already knew they were useless. The only place I ever lived as a child where they weren't done was "nowhereville" Arizona while my father was in Vietnam. I was (thankfully) too young to understand why Christmas came before he left that year. Just how serious was it my generation Z and millennial coworkers want to know. In 1963, before I was born, my father called my mother while he was stationed in Anchorage and said, "Take the kids and the car and get out of Anchorage now." She did. My mother was the strongest person I've ever known. I feel the dread coming back, but not because of the old reason, but because of the very old reason. If it's not H5N1 it'll be something else - maybe even something we thought we'd licked because time has a way of making history repeat. Tempus fugit, momento mori.
@[email protected] @[email protected] I’ve been wondering if active shooter drills are the duck and cover for later American generations. A repetitive drill focused on possible imminent death. I can’t imagine that anyone comes out of that unchanged.
@[email protected] @[email protected] In many ways the active shooter drills seem worse. Duck and cover was about the random threat of total annihilation at the hands of impersonal, out of control global powers. The shooter drills are about the random threat of personal annihilation at the hands of your neighbor.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
Reminder: your neighbour was radicalised and manipulated by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube algorithms pushed by McKenzie consultants and the top brass of tech companies for profit and an ideological agenda (and Fox News, OANN, etc.) and an automatic weapon was put in his hands by Republican legislators, the NRA and the Supreme Court.
The radicalised, racist, bigoted ideology behind the trigger was pushed and riled up by political representatives and their sponsors.
There is responsibility to be assigned, this didn't spawn in a vacuum.
@[email protected] @[email protected]
Nuclear war is still the greatest danger facing the world.
@[email protected] @[email protected] Thanks for the information.
@[email protected] @[email protected] I grew up inside the DC beltway, so it was pretty palpable for me.
Now I’m 10 miles from the northern Virginia data center wasteland, and feel a similar threat.
@[email protected] @[email protected] Native NYer here, so yeah, I know the feeling.
But if they want to destroy us, perhaps the most effective thing they could do is leave the data centers running...
@[email protected] I lived my early years in Santa Clara Valley under the shadow of that radar station. The fear of nuclear annihilation was very real to me. Nevertheless it was remarkable to be able to see the radar dish revolving from miles away on the valley floor, and noteworthy when they decommissioned it.
@[email protected], one of the things I appreciate about your capture is how harmless it looks, and mundane.
@mattblaze @simplenomad
I remember when I was a child being taught to "Duck and Cover". And being shown some cartoon about a turtle.
@nyrath @mattblaze @simplenomad "Duck and Cover" may account for much of the generation gap between the WW2 vets and the Baby Boomers. The vets knew from personal experience how hideous war was; but they also saw what happens to people conquered by totalitarians. The Boomers by contrast grew up with an existential fear of annihilation; to them militarism was suicidal insanity.
@60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad
I find it rather disturbing that any time one mentions that a globally apocalyptic nuclear arms race is perhaps a bad thing, someone always feels the need to jump in and defend it.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] The arms race was scary but as it turned out wasn't apocalyptic. The WW2 vets who ran the world until about 1990 weren't stupid or insane; they did everything they could to avoid nuclear war OTHER than unilateral surrender. And no, mutual disarmament was never realistic given the irreconcilable differences between the two sides.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I don't think I can defend the arms race itself. I can, though, point out that developing an alternative means not just one that's resistant to Putin or Kim Jong Un, but one that's resistant to Kim Yo Jong (who worries me much more than her brother does).
@mattblaze Yikes, really? I thought it bad enough when they were telling you to CW your monochromatic images. I think it's terrifying that someone with a very thin skin and no impulse control now sits on the largest pile of nuclear arms in the world. @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad
@CStamp @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad Yes. That’s the gift that those brilliant WW II vets who ran the world for 30+ years worshipping the likes of Herman Kahn and his ilk. A giant pile of civilization-ending weapons contolled by two opposing sociopaths. Thanks a lot.
@CStamp @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad The thing about the escalation game is that every individual move is rational, but the game itself is completely insane. And we spend almost all our effort (especially in the 50’s and 60’s) strategizing each next move instead of finding an exit.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Of course we've mainly been discussing USA and Russia in this thread. It is very possible that someone else could start something that simply "gets out of hand" and pulls others into things. Or USA with the right (e.g. wrong) leadership decides to play Team America: World Police to "fix the problem".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Have you ever read “Wizards of Armageddon”? The “logic" behind some of the decisions was seriously insane and often driven by quite narrow interests. For example: initially, the (US) Navy's submarine-launched missiles were inaccurate, so they advocated a city-destroying strategy, since that was all they could hit. The Air Force denounced that as immoral, not because they felt that way but because they could come close to military targets. Later, the Navy had more accurate missiles, so they preferred a counterforce strategy. But then the targets, e.g., missile silos, were hardened and warheads were very plentiful, so attacking cities with multiple missiles or bombers was preferred by the Air Force.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
Students in my class play a simple game called the escalation game which I started a couple of years back after physicist Max Tegmark claimed there was a 1/6 chance of a nuclear war starting over Ukraine.
The first time we played we had 1/7 teams end in nuclear war. This year half of the teams ended with a nuclear war.
It's more about the competitive nature of the players than a real estimate of any probability of course.
It was very convenient that the first year my boss was in the class and I was being evaluated for my teaching abilities and we got 1/7 vs. Tegmark's 1/6. Phew!
See Ellsberg's book The Doomsday Machine.
PS Most estimates of the annual probability are lower, generally below 1% but of course not zero.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] 2/2: the problem ultimately is, what do you do about nuclear weapons in a world in which nation-states still fight wars?
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] 1/2: They tried to find an exit; but none logically existed. Ban nuclear weapons? Then we're back to June 1945, when total strategic (conventional) war complete with burning down cities prompted the development of nukes in the first place. International control? The USA proposed it, the Soviet Union vetoed it (while secretly working to develop their own nukes). Mutual disarmament? The first side to cheat wins.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Yeah, Nuclear fetishists love to declare that there's no alternative, simply nothing we can do. Much like the way there's no solution to health care or gun violence.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] If you're in favor of unilateral surrender to others who DON'T give up their nukes, please say so.
@60sRefugee @CStamp @nyrath @simplenomad No. But unlike you, apparently, I think the current situation is unacceptably dangerous and inherently unstable, and that working to find ways to dismantle a system in which the entire world can be blown up in less than the time it takes to get a pizza delivered should be considered an urgent international priority.
This is actually a pretty mainstream view. In fact, while the world is still quite dangerous, various treaties have made it safer.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Find "ways". People have tried for 75 years. And no it wasn't because people were evil, insane warmongers that it hasn't happened. People were scared shitless about the possibility of nuclear war practically from the day after the Japanese bombings.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] The difference between people like you and people like me is that you seem eager to give up.
Not me. I think nuclear war is fundamentally evil, and that there is room to continue to make it much less likely, if we have the will.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Give up? More like have no idea how to start. If you have a concrete suggestion beyond "do something" I'm all ears.
@60sRefugee @mattblaze @CStamp @nyrath @simplenomad I think those 75 years of effort may have helped avert the worst outcomes. Why was “Daisy” so effective in sinking Goldwater’s presidential bid?
@fivetonsflax Problem is it only takes someone like Spanky to undo all forward motion. @60sRefugee @mattblaze @nyrath @simplenomad
@CStamp @fivetonsflax @60sRefugee @mattblaze @nyrath @simplenomad I mean, yes and no. Ratified treaties do have weight, even with impulsive executives. Public opinion also does mean something. International pressure against more nations developing these weapons means fewer possible uses.
Nothing is perfect but progress is worthwhile.
See also our relative and ongoing success in reducing chemical and biological weapon stockpiles and use
@njvack @fivetonsflax @60sRefugee @mattblaze @nyrath @simplenomad Ratified treaties have no weight with someone like Spanky.
@CStamp @njvack @fivetonsflax @60sRefugee @nyrath @simplenomad One way in which treaties matter is they affect stockpile and rage of weapons he has to work with. Things take time to ramp up (and down). The president can't, for example, snap his or her fingers and double the number of land-based ICBMs overnight.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Even just restarting nuclear testing is far from a “snap your fingers” kind of thing. Is it doable in four years, with a supportive Congress? Probably. But it’s expensive and Congress may not be as supportive as you hope.
If all that infrastructure had been maintained instead of mothballed it would be way easier.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] He already has enough rage weapons to do damage. This time, it's less likely folk in charge of the military will care more about the country and world and more likely to be ass kissers. :(
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Yes, the president is, of course, enormously powerful.
I'm just saying that those powers are limited by what they come in with. If, for example, the US had completely eliminated its nuclear arsenal somehow, it's unlikely the a there's much that could be done in a four year term to reverse that.
@[email protected] They sure have stories to tell.
@[email protected] I would expect SAGE to have detected jamming
(either as way too many simultaneous targets, in systematic patterns, OR absurd non-natural noise swamping Rx),
but
unless we had advance intel on the device, SAGE operators would've struggled to guide early fighters to intercept a significant % of actual incoming bandits, which would still be a mission failure.
@[email protected]
We like The Box here.
@[email protected] recommended thread, including the image.
#ColdWarInfrastructure #why
Curious why one would stitch images from two different cameras?
@[email protected] huh? There’s only one camera involved here.