The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#2Related (a bit):
Notes on Nike Missile Site SF 88-L - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22813836 - April 2020 (1 comment)
Nike Missile Sites of the San Francisco Bay Area (2001) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956954 - July 2015 (48 comments)
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#3[deleted]
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#4we have multiple former Nike missle sites here in Anchorage. in a modern day city park, you can check out a missle stabilizer on interpretive display at the former launch command center turned cross country ski chalet. there are doors in that building that are like time portals to tha past. you go through an unassuming modern commercial steel door from a room where kids gather before weekly lessons into a world of concrete hallways with enormous blast doors welded open and narrow staircases leading down to lower levels with remnants of launch and other equipment.
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#5> Analog computers may seem to be "simple" or "like a toy computer", in fact they are powerful tools that were used during the 1950s and 1960s to design and test systems like ICBMs, supersonic aircraft and spacecraft.
this is indeed a very interesting quote that we -dealing with digital- often tend to forget.
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#6Related (a bit): Notes on Nike Missile Site SF 88-L - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22813836 - April 2020 (1 comment) Nike Missile Sites of the San Francisco Bay Area (2001) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956954 - July 2015 (48 comments)
You can still visit SF-88. It's open three days a week.[1] I've been there, and I've seen the analog computer. There are mechanical sequencers with motor driven cams. It's only partially electronic.
The blast doors and the missile elevator still worked, but the electronics and radar did not do much, although parts of the system could be powered up.
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#7Related (a bit): Notes on Nike Missile Site SF 88-L - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22813836 - April 2020 (1 comment) Nike Missile Sites of the San Francisco Bay Area (2001) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956954 - July 2015 (48 comments)
You can still visit SF-88. It's open three days a week.[1] I've been there, and I've seen the analog computer. There are mechanical sequencers with motor driven cams. It's only partially electronic. The blast doors and the missile elevator still worked, but the electronics and radar did not do much, although parts of the system could be powered up. [1] https://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm
I've hiked around there for decades and had no idea.
I'm totally going - thank you so much!
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#8If you’ve never watched a video of one of these interceptor rockets, it’s worth a view. They take off at an insane speed.
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#9I used to live near Sandy Hook in NJ. There was a Nike base there, but also several decades of various gun emplacements. They even secretly had nuclear warheads on the Nike Atlas missiles there to take out incoming bombers where the missiles were less accurate. No one in the towns around was told.
It’s an interesting historical place to walk around Fort Hancock as you see the batteries (no guns, sadly), and the Nike station.
The fortifications date from the civil war.
They have tours of the guns and missiles from time to time.
https://www.nps.gov/gate/planyourvisit/sandyhookniketours.ht...
https://home.nps.gov/gate/learn/historyculture/sandyhookpeop...
Re: The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
#10If you’ve never watched a video of one of these interceptor rockets, it’s worth a view. They take off at an insane speed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(missile)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZGaMt7UgQ
Mach 10 in five seconds. Ablative cooling, due to the surface reaching 3500c from air friction.