Have you ever driven past an Air Force space and thought what are those
ginormous white domes of a giant white golf balls or is it some kind of
gigantic tent that the army sleep in well it's none of these things these are
actually called ray domes they're called ray domes and they're gigantic white
domes found on Air Force bases they've been on them for decades but what do
they actually do what's inside them what are they used for and are they actually
safe I'm Charlie and today we're going to look at what actually happens under a
domes but before we get into it why not subscribe and press the notification
bell - so what's underneath a ray dome well the white golf ball shape of a
radome actually does nothing the only function it does is protect what's
inside it underneath all ray domes will be at least one radar antenna a radar
antenna is an antenna which is used to detect radio waves and the domes which
cover the satellite dishes and antennas are crucial for detecting missiles if a
missile gets into your country you may wonder how does the Air Force know well
it's because of the technology underneath these Ray domes
the Ray domes protect these dishes from being hacked or attacked in some way and
it also conceals that the direction the satellite is pointing in in fact all of
the missiles launched on the planet can be detected with the radome the areas
where ray domes are are strictly off-limits to the public and many people
in the airforce only people super high up actually get
to go anywhere near these let alone inside them that's because they're
searching for the most dangerous weapons on the planet and if we didn't have them
we simply wouldn't know what was going on in terms of missiles around the world
if you talk to someone in the airforce they won't call these radars they'll
call it an SRS that stands for satellite readout station and the official
nickname is golf balls the big ray domes also cover up gigantic satellite dishes
from things like hail wind another bad weather and they can even withstand an
f5 tornado that is one of the most scary and powerful tornadoes in existence but
what a ray domes actually made out of you may think they're made out of some
kind of cheese fabric which reflects lights but that's
actually not the case they're very technical and expensive although the
white panels look like fabric they're actually made out of fiberglass the
fiberglass is so strong it's the same which is used on a boat every dome has
around 800 tiles of this and it costs millions of dollars and each dome can
weigh around 300 pounds and if you aggregate all of the materials used in a
radome it's about hundred tons that's because these row domes are gigantic
especially up close in fact they're nearly a hundred feet tall they have to
be this high because the satellite dish inside is often around 60 feet tall the
satellite dishes inside cost millions and millions of dollars to make they can
move vertically or horizontally and move just one degree per second the reason
why it's so slow is because they have to be super precise when you're dealing
with nuclear weapons and missiles you don't want to make any mistakes
if you're lucky enough to actually get up close to a radar me you'll notice two
very odd things on the outside of the building
on the outside will be a red light which hopefully will be turned off and also a
speaker really you shouldn't be anywhere near the building if you see the light
flashing all the speaker making a sound that's because these are used as a
radiation warning when the dish is transmitting whenever the dish transmits
any information out it will produce a lot of radiation this is very dangerous
for humans to be anywhere near it it's literally radiating you and there's
actually people whose job is just to maintain at these ray domes the motors
which operate the satellite inside the radome have to move around 60 tons of
steel to do this they use MSL which is mobile synthetic lubricant and because
of this every now and then engineers have to come in and change the oil for
the gearboxes for every satellite dish also around every radome will be a
gigantic road the recent foolish robe is to clear snow off the top of radars you
simply grab the rope and walk around the radome and the snow will fall off but
most of the time you won't see any military personnel or any other
personnel around ray domes that's because they're all unmanned and work
automatically unless there's maintenance to be done you won't see anyone near
them or in but this doesn't mean people aren't
keeping a very close eye on every single radome ray domes are actually operated
mainly from things called em CSS this stands for emission control station
and this will likely be on the air for space which the ray domes are located on
inside the MCS people will track infrared energy released all around the
world it will use that information and then people will determine if that
energy is from a missile if it is then an alert will be sent out as we'll be
going to war but let's hope that day never comes
but one of the key pieces for defending your country happens right underneath
these ray domes no mistakes can be made and the mission
cannot be failed because lives depend on it but what if a missile was actually to
be released well if a missile was fired anywhere in the world
then these missile alerts would sound the ray domes will trigger a missile
alert named Brenda it's called Brenda because the alert
sound kind of sounds like a woman now you may think this sound is never heard
as no one's firing mucus at each other but whenever a small missile is launched
a sound is heard for example at the Buckley Air Force Base in Denver
Colorado the brendor missile alert sound sounded four hundred times in one year
that's because there were over 10,000 non missile infrared events these are
infrared events which are hot enough to be picked up by the satellites under a
domes but thankfully they were not missiles each Air Force Base likely has
six to twelve ray domes but if you think ray don't adjust at military bases then
you'd be wrong in fact the US government has a 300
million dollar doomsday airplane for the end of the world this is the airplane
the president will go on if the USA goes to nuclear war it's called at the Boeing
efore and I have a whole video all about that but on that plane is a small bump
which is a radar fish radon conceals a small satellite which picks up any
missile launched anywhere in the world and some unmanned weather surveillance
planes such as the boeing e-3 sentry also have Rados these are used to track
the weather and infrared rays for example missiles being launched and
non missile infrared events the radars on these are disk-like and they're
called roto domes but the reason it's this shape on things like the boeing e-3
is to reduce drag and make the plane fly more smoothly so that's what ray domes
are and what happens underneath them so next time you're driving by military
base and sealove those gigantic white golf ball things you can tell everyone
that's what they are but now it's time to make your opinion heard do you think
we will ever have nuclear war and really have to use these ray domes for their
intended purpose vote in the poll and the top right corner and let me know if
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