This picture explicate more about theSAGE organisation I wrote about last week , the huge Airforce used in the 50s to the 80 to make us finger safe from supersonic Soviet bombers .
The video here has a batch of selective information . If you ’re short on time , I recommend watching the pretending of how the system would assign and deploy paladin jets and surface to air missile to each threat , which is at about the 20 instant sucker .
Here ’s a copy of apanel about SAGEthat fall out at theComputer History Museumin 1998 . I launch this musical passage , about why they could n’t utilise human spotters to warn of invasions , enthralling :
And they saw lots of things ! [ Laughter ] They saw airplanes — many of them were civilian ; they saw birds ; they saw all kinds of things , and most of them they thought were Soviet bombers . I think , this was a shuddery period . They would then call the nigh air fundament , which would then have to compute out if this selective information was deserving anything . And passably much none of it was deserving anything . So , it very rapidly became obvious that despite the huge sizing of this program — there were 8,000 observation posts , and at the peak of the program 305,000 volunteers staff these things 24 time of day a day — the information was pretty much useless . So , commanders just ignored it . For one thing , by the time it had been verified , the bombers would already be there . So , what was the point ?
The ground I ’m telling you this storey is that the design of this platform was not really air defense . It was public relations . It was saying to the public , “ We are doing something about this problem — we see it . ” At the same meter , the Air Force started looking everywhere for idea from scientists and technologist , and [ referring to the slide presentation ] now we ’re resume , and I ’m not sure what ’s going on .
What ’s the modern equivalent system that we ’d apply to defend ourselves against North Korean nukes ? I do n’t eff . I just hope its more than just a Porto Rico stunt .
[ Computer History Museum , Wikipedia ]
The Computer History Museum is a wonderful place . If you ’re in northerly CA , I recommend you get a way to stop by . We ’ll be course while from their collection as an on-going serial . limited thanks to Fiona Tang , John Hollar and the amazing Dag Spicer for their assistance .
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