Semi-Automatic Ground Environment
| Semi-Automatic Ground Environment | |
| "Ground Environment of the CONUS Air Defense Systems" (1953) "Electronic Air Defense Environment" (1950) |
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| military C3 human-computer interface | |
 The 4-story SAGE blockhouses with 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) of floor space "were hardened [for] overpressures of" 5 psi (34 kPa). A shorter adjoining building (left) had generators below the 4 intake/exhaust structures on the roof.
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| Countries | United States, Canada |
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Combat
CC-01:
Centers CC-02: CC-03:
CC-04:
CC-05:
CC-06:
CC-xx:
CC-yy:
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NY (Hancock Field), WI (Truax Field), WA (McChord AFB), NY (Stewart AFB), CA (Hamilton AFB)**, MO (Richards-Gebaur AFB)*, ND Minot AFB* AZ Luke AFB* |
| Project Office Coordination Design Equip. contract |
USAF Air Material Command Western Electric System Development Corporation Burroughs Corporation |
| Operational | 1958 June 26 — DC-01 1958 December 1 — DC-03 1959 (early) — CC-01 1966 April 1 — CC-05 |
| AN/FSQ-7 | IBM Military Products Division |
| *Combat Center not completed since AN/FSQ-8 production was halted c. Nov 1958 when Super Combat Centers were planned with AN/FSQ-32s. **CC-05 at Hamilton AFB, CA utilized a 3-string AN/GSA-51 computer system and was active from Apr 1/66 to Dec 31/69. |
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The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. SAGE directed and controlled the NORAD response to a Soviet air attack, operating in this role from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Its enormous computers and huge displays remain a part of cold war lore, and a common prop in movies such as Dr. Strangelove and Colossus.
The processing power behind SAGE was supplied by the largest computer ever built, the AN/FSQ-7. Each SAGE Direction Center (DC) housed an FSQ-7 which occupied an entire floor, approximately 22,000 square feet not including supporting equipment. Information was fed to the DC's from a network of radar stations as well as readiness information from various defence sites. The computers, based on the raw radar data, developed "tracks" for the reported targets, and automatically calculated which defences were within range. Operators used light guns to select targets onscreen for further information, select one of the available defences, and issue commands to attack. These commands would then be automatically sent to the defence site via teleprinter.
Connecting the various sites was an enormous network of telephones, modems and teleprinters. Later additions to the system allowed SAGE's tracking data to be sent directly to CIM-10 Bomarc missiles and some of the US Air Force's interceptor aircraft in-flight, directly updating their autopilots to maintain an intercept course without operator intervention. Each DC also forwarded data to a Combat Center (CC) for "supervision of the several sectors within the division" ("each combat center [had] the capability to coordinate defense for the whole nation").
SAGE became operational in the late 1950s and early 1960s at a combined cost of billions of dollars. It was noted that the deployment cost more than the Manhattan Project, which it was, in a way, defending against. Throughout its development there were continual questions about its real ability to deal with large attacks, and several tests by Strategic Air Command bombers suggested the system was "leaky". Nevertheless, SAGE was the backbone of NORAD's air defence system into the 1980s, by which time the tube-based FSQ-7's were increasingly costly to maintain and completely outdated. Today the same command and control task is carried out by microcomputers, based on the same basic underlying data.
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