AN/URC-117 Ground Wave Emergency Network

AN/URC-117 Ground Wave Emergency Network

Coordinates: 34°45′06″N 115°13′49″W / 34.751647°N 115.230278°W / 34.751647; -115.230278

The Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN) was a command and control communications system intended for use by the United States government to facilitate military communications before, during and after a nuclear war. Specifically, GWEN was constructed to survive the effects of a high-altitude nuclear explosion electromagnetic pulse to insure that the United States President or his survivors can give a launching order to strategic nuclear bombers.

Read more about AN/URC-117 Ground Wave Emergency Network:  Overview, History, Description, Operations, Site Layout, GWEN Site Locations, Controversies, Termination, Disposition, Photo Gallery

Famous quotes containing the words ground, wave, emergency and/or network:

    On every tree a bucket with a lid,
    And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow.
    The sparks made no attempt to be the moon.
    They were content to figure in the trees
    As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades.
    And that was what the boughs were full of soon.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph.
    Henry Miller (1891–1980)

    War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view “realistically”; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent—war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    Parents need all the help they can get. The strongest as well as the most fragile family requires a vital network of social supports.
    Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)