QuantumFog

August 30, 2006

Portable radar

The SBX is all about extremes. Its' radar can give you the trajectory of a baseball from 2,300 miles away.

The neurally gifted gnomes at Boeing and Raytheon put their skills to the task of creating something to detect incoming missiles from Asia. That resulted in a Norwegian designed customized oil platform built by the Russians in Norway. They shipped the platform south to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Boeing adds the radar system, making the entire structure roughly 28 stories tall. The radar is tested, then moves south again, around the southern tip of South America, through the Straits of Magellan.

It moves north to Hawaii, where it sits today. Why? No one's talking. Speculation is the $1,000,000,000 project has problems. It's eventual destination is Adak, Alaska. Some 24,000 miles from where construction began.

Adak is located about midway along the Aleutian chain. It's a place where the wind never stops and occasional gusts reach speeds of 115 mph. The winds have been known to rip doors off of cars and send people flying. Rain, fog or overcast skies are a daily occurrence. Sunny days happen about one week out of the year. Umbrellas are useless because precipitation always moves sideways due to the wind.

In places, the dirt washes out from under the tundra grasses, creating deep traps for the unwary hiker. Occasionally, one finds a booby trap left over from WW2. Great place for radar duty.

We should mention the SBX is semi-submersible and self propelled. Just what you need for those island hopping barbeques and speeding away from the bad guys targeting your radar.

So far, the only protection the structure will have is light handheld weapons. Hopefully there's a defense for shaped charges, mines and torpedoes. Else, this is a lot of effort for nothing.

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