(10 April 88) At night I can hear the monster groan as it looms high above the jungle. Sometimes it stops, then tilts its mass in my direction and I feel like I’m being watched. Lit up, it makes one uneasy. It can send a powerful invisible UHF field several miles.
Awesome is a fitting description for ALTAIR, the deep space tracking radar on Namur. Its one hundred and fifty foot dish weighs 800,000 pounds and can reach out over 24,000 miles. The whole structure rides on a circular rail and can move to any position in a matter of seconds. The trackers inside a nearby building maneuver ALTAIR to follow ICBMs, both Soviet and American, or to catalogue satellites and space junk put into orbit by earthlings. They even keep track of an astronaut’s glove and can tell when it will fall to earth. Click image once, then again for full screen.
ALTAIR produces five megawatts of ultra high frequency radiation and if anyone happens to stray in front during a mission, the system will shut down. According to a map, half of Ennubirr, Third Island, is affected. Before the radar begins tracking missiles fired from Vandenberg, a police officer travels by boat to Ennubirr and places a pole with a red metal flag on the end of the pier. The Marshallese on the island are supposed to stay indoors until the testing is finished but when I asked the briefer if the islanders complied with the warning, he just smiled and said no. Click image once, then again for full screen.
On one occasion, Brand X came up close to Namur Island since the deep water begins only a few hundred yards offshore. The crew of ALTAIR turned the dish directly at the Soviet ship’s electronic listening devices and gave it a full, long blast. In the event of a nuclear war, ALTAIR would be the first target, I was told. The operation would be carried out by a Russian Spetsnaz team. Click once, then again for full screen.
I must admit that I’m concerned about all of the force fields being produced here. A few more months, though and I’ll be back home in the sunshine state.
Another name for ALTAIR is ARPA ALTAIR. It means Advanced Research Projects Agency Advanced Long Range Tracking And Instrumentation Radar.
Filed under: Almost Paradise Volume 3
Trackback Uri
