The fate of a run-down, Cold War-era early warning radar tower rests in the balance. Perched prominently atop Mount Umunhum, overlooking San Jose, Calif., sits the concrete structure, which was a part of Almaden Air Force Station until its closure in 1980. The San Jose Mercury News reports that the Midpeninsula Open Space District, a government agency in Los Altos, Calif., is currently developing the site as a recreation area, opening the debate as to whether the tower should remain as a tribute to Cold War history, or be cleared away. A public workshop is scheduled for Thursday in Los Gatos to give members of local communities a chance to weigh in on the issue. The radar site became operational in 1957, as part of the NORAD’s San Francisco Air Defense Sector.
The Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.
