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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Pyramid in the Middle of Nowhere Built To Track the End of the World
The Safeguard Program was an anti-ballistic missile system built by Western Electric and Bell Laboratories and operated by the United States Army. Safeguard entered brief service in 1975. It was designed to protect U.S. ICBM sites from counterforce attack, thus preserving the option of a retaliatory second strike. The only operational deployment of Safeguard was the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, North Dakota.
Even before the complex had reached full operational capability the Department of Defense had determined that the state of readiness of the facility would be reduced by July 1976, after a period of operational testing. The House Appropriations Committee, however, proposed that it be shut down entirely by that date. The committee reasoned that Soviet missiles armed with multiple warheads would overwhelm the system.
Safeguard used much of the same technology as the earlier Sentinel Program, which had been designed to protect U.S. cities. Sentinel was developed but never deployed. The LIM-49 Spartan interceptor used in the program was an evolution of Bell's LIM-49 Nike Zeus.[3] Safeguard was planned for several sites within the United States, but only one was completed. Until the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system was deployed, the Safeguard Complex was the only operational anti-ballistic missile system deployed by the United States.
The Russian counterpart to the Safeguard system was the Soviet A-35 anti-ballistic missile system, which defended Moscow and nearby missile fields. The Russian anti-missile-system remains in operation today as the upgraded A-135 anti-ballistic missile system.
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Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Shivering Jemmy
(900 posts)Evolution doesn't advance. It simply proliferates.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)A HERETIC I AM
(24,368 posts)I've been fascinated over the years by this type of thing and one place that never fails to amuse is Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in Tucson, AZ. If one searches enough, you can find photos dating back to just after WWII and onward, where thousands of aircraft, many brand spanking new off the assembly line, were cut up to either satisfy a treaty or for scrap or both. A process that has now been going on for decades.
If we had allotted a mere ten percent of the total spent on defense since the end of World War two, we could have easily created a colony on the Moon numbering in the thousands, an electrical grid completely covered by solar energy and colonies in massive space stations that would be delivering the technological salvation to mankind as we speak.
Instead we have chosen as a race of primates to continue to throw rocks at each other and see who can pull down the most leaves before the other.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)There are our social security, our infrastructure, and schools, transformed into P3Orios, B52's and miscellaneous jets waiting to be turned into scrap.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,368 posts)From the 50's - Lockheed Constellations - the precursor to the modern 707 based AWACS;
Dozens of them, chopped up.
Convair B-36 'Peacemakers'
Built, flown, discarded. On the taxpayer dime (This aircraft, for a VERY short time, BTW very quickly superseded by the B-52);
B-52's
Cut up and laid out in such a way as to be intentionally visible to Soviet satellites;
A little more modern; A 7 Corsairs:
It goes on and on and on and on and on.
It is said that Davis Monthan is the only AFB that actually makes the Defense Department money, because of their parts sales.
Bully for them. If it wasn't for the constant inflow of aircraft the military builds then discards by the THOUSANDS, DM AFB would be just another base in need of closure.
No one...and I mean no one with a decent and logical mind can look at the above pictures, bearing in mind that they were all taken AFTER World War 2, and not be touched by General Eisenhower's words;
I am equally fascinated and disgusted by the mere existence of Davis Monthan Air Force Base.