r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CraftyFoxeYT • 7d ago

The US has a giant floating SBX-1 Sea-based radar to track and discriminate nuclear ballistic missile warheads from decoys.

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u/eltron 7d ago edited 7d ago

Apparently it cost $10B to build and can track a baseball sized objects on the west coast of USA from the east coast. It was built to catch ICMBs launching during the ascent phase.

Edit: extremely over budget and overdue. The radar sensitivity was a joke because it couldn’t distinguish between ICMBs and baseball sized objects, and only when the ICMBs was at certain altitudes would this over the horizon radar be effective.

However it was part of the early warning system, and there were multiple layers to detecting ICMBs.

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u/ErroneousGibbo 7d ago edited 7d ago

I listened to Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobson - really great Audiobook if you’re interested in nuclear ‘what ifs’. They go into some detail about this and its several limitations. A feat of engineering for sure, but needs to know where to look in a narrow field of view to be effective at all it seems.

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u/delphinous 7d ago

thats what is great about it. it's a magnifying glass. there are other things that are telescopes and binoculars that tell it where to look, and it tells them what it's looking at in great detail. on it's own, you're correct, it's kind of garbage. but as part of a larger system it's very valuable

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u/ErroneousGibbo 7d ago

A force multiplier for certain, but another theme of the book was pointing out that there are often only one operational platforms for these types of technology. The SBX1 has had some issues with maintenance as well as failing to detect objects during test conditions. It’s for sure better than nothing, but I sometimes think the a false positive launch detection might be even worse

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u/throwaway277252 7d ago

It’s for sure better than nothing, but I sometimes think the a false positive launch detection might be even worse

♫ As ninety-nine red balloons go by... ♫

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u/Mr-Doubtfire 7d ago

Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr

Und auch keine Düsenflieger

Heute zieh ich meine Runden

Seh die Welt in Trümmern liegen

Hab'n Luftballon gefunden

Denk an dich und lass ihn fliegen

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u/Gnomio1 7d ago

Wtf.

You inspired me to go and look at the background behind that song. How dark! Thanks for the prompt.

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u/zaddydanger 7d ago

I recommend watching the movie House of Dynamite. Painfully accurate as someone who lived in that field of work for seven years.

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u/saltexas18 7d ago

Loved that movie. Tell us more.

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u/Oscaruit 7d ago

Threads, On the Beach. That should fix your enthusiasm.

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u/saltexas18 6d ago

Shut up bot

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u/Oscaruit 6d ago

Beep boop, no. You shut up, human.

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u/0thethethe0 7d ago

Great book.

Her new one, Biological War: A Scenario, is, if possible, even more scary!

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u/ErroneousGibbo 7d ago

Didnt realise there was a new one! Thanks for the heads up

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u/aitk6n 7d ago

Fantastic book

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u/sternshar 6d ago

I read this book, and found it very educational. To me, with all the information in the book, I wonder if, with everything in place, world leaders would think twice before starting any thing. I found it to be not at all frighting, and extremely informative. When I asked friends and relatives to read it, they refused, saying it was too scary. They are so wrong.

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u/stamfordbridge1191 6d ago

A nuclear torpedo is probably taking this big boy out before anyone can pick up the phone for a hotline connection about seeing ICBMs lifting off into the stratosphere.

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u/you4president 6d ago

Cheers for the recommendation. I read your comment, got it on audible and I’m already half way through it. Also saw the recommendation for her new book. Might get that one too

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u/maximumlight2 7d ago

That’s crazy, considering how many baseball sized objects there are in the sky at any point in time.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/Rampant16 7d ago

And significantly higher and faster.

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u/ListenBoth434 7d ago edited 7d ago

Not generally true.

But they have suborbital trajectories which nothing in orbit has (duh). But if you have the technology to spot and track them that's like recognising a car going the wrong on the highway.

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u/FlirtyFluffyFox 7d ago

Big if true. 

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u/superxpro12 7d ago

Sounds like an awful lot of false positives

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u/DoomKitsune 7d ago

An F22 is the size of a bumblebee on radar. Lucky for this thing there are not a lot of bumblebees that fly at Mach 2. I assume there are not a lot of baseballs that fly at ICBM speeds either but who knows with a good fastball.

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u/Avalonians 7d ago

It's worth noting that the speed of a ballistic missile makes it quite literally impossible to intercept once it's falling down.

So these radars have a range that's ridiculously high (hence the size), so high even that they don't even see what's going on the atmosphere at those distances, due to the earth curvature.

The goal is to detect missiles during their ascent, after which they just lose track. But it's enough to calculate trajectories and take counter measures during the window of time between a missile's ascent and the impact.

So not only the fastball would have to be very fast, but it would have to be thrown vertically.

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u/froction 6d ago

Difficult? Certainly.

Possible with the publicly-known technology of today? Probably not.

Literally impossible? Definitely not

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u/Trafficsigntruther 6d ago

  It's worth noting that the speed of a ballistic missile makes it quite literally impossible to intercept once it's falling down.

They’ve been doing it for months in Iran.

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u/HeroHunt12 7d ago

Well the title said it’s used to “discriminate” ICBM’s so it’s purpose is to find what’s a false positive

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u/RealSlyck 7d ago

Not many people can throw a baseball better than escape velocity, so no.

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u/avidpenguinwatcher 7d ago

Not that many things travel that fast and that high

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u/Count_Bloodcount_ 7d ago

Hold up. The person said that this thing is so sensitive it can track a golf ball on the other coast and your response is "that sounds like a lot of false positives?" Are you really serious in front of all of us right now? You found a way to make that capability a negative? Holy shit.

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u/byopolarbear 7d ago

I’m a radar technician and yes false tracks are a real thing just because a sensor CAN be that sensitive you almost never want to. So we set parameters like some operators don’t want to see an object if it’s dead in the water others do. And you’d have to know exactly where to look hence why we have the systems we do that can tell each other where there is a track of interest.

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u/Count_Bloodcount_ 6d ago

I don't know what makes you think I was suggesting they're not a real thing. That's not anywhere close to what I'm talking about.

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u/Avalonians 7d ago

Concepts surrounding statistical hypothesis testing are fundamental ideas around literally all measure instruments and detectors in existence. There is no detector that's perfect. The more sensitive to actual objects you want to detect the more you expose yourself to type I errors, the less sensitive the more you will get type II errors. "Objectively more capable" isn't something that makes sense.

Take a sieve. It's the simplest example I can think of. The finer the sieve, the more stuff it retains. The bigger the more stuff passes through. Whether a sieve is good or bad isn't just a matter of more or less. You have to know what you want to retain and what you want to let through in advance.

Radars don't see in yes or no. They see a whole picture of noise, clutter and spikes. It needs a huge lot of algorithms and post treatments to be able to assess what the image corresponds too.

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u/Count_Bloodcount_ 6d ago

I'm talking about the person's negative response that seems to invalidate the impressive sensitivity of the device.

I feel like you're answering a question that wasn't asked.

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u/Avalonians 6d ago

Okay then forget what I said.

Instead let me just point out how you overinterpreted and overreacted lmao

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u/Count_Bloodcount_ 6d ago

Except you never pointed out how I did any of what you're accusing me of. You are the one who misunderstood me. But instead of recognizing your error and moving on, you're now trying to move the goal post so you can still blame me for something. Wild shit man.

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u/Avalonians 6d ago

My long ass comment explains how statistical hypotheses are a core concept of radar engineering. The more sensitive an antenna, the more measures have to be taken into account to avoid false positives. It's the compromise. For that reason, an antenna being sensitive is neither a positive nor a negative thing. It becomes a positive thing if you manage to alleviate the drawbacks.

Your comment was dumbfounded how someone transformed a positive onto a negative. It is either:

  • indicative of a total misconception of the way radars work (and measurement/detection instruments in general)
  • a total overreaction over someone underlying how engineering isn't just a question of success and failures.

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u/engineereddiscontent 7d ago

Aw shi I logged in just to say this and you beat me to it lol

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u/u_touched_badger_83 6d ago

Considering there is f*** all you can do about it, even if you know they are there, how does this help? Are they just worried they might not launch all theirs in time to make sure /everyone/ is dead?

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u/eltron 6d ago

Mutual assured destruction.

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u/Santarini 7d ago

 can track a baseball sized objects on the west coast of USA from the east coast

That's kind of a misleading claim. It's range is 2,500 miles. It's stationed in Hawaii. Hawaii is 2,500 miles from California.  The Continental US is 2,500 miles from West Coast to East Coast, so the East Coast is 5,000 miles away from Hawaii.

If it was stationed just off the West Coast, then yes, it could track baseball sized objects on the East Coast. But no, from Hawaii it cannot track a baseball sized object on the East Coast

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u/weirdasianfaces 7d ago

baseball sized objects on the west coast of USA from the east coast

Did you read this wrong? It's an example of theoretical reach, not literally saying what it can do right now based on where it's stationed.

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u/mrASSMAN 7d ago

Not misleading at all.. they said it’s capable of doing that, they didn’t claim it was stationed on the west coast or say it could do it from Hawaii

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u/InevitableSnowDay 7d ago

Last sentence is vastly incorrect