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.

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.

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.

I remember when I was a child being taught to "Duck and Cover". And being shown some cartoon about a turtle.

"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.

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.

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

Yes. That’s the gift left to us by those best and brightest 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.

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.

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.

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.

If you're in favor of unilateral surrender to others who DON'T give up their nukes, please say so.

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.