ABSTRACT

Radomes, the iconic structures protecting sensitive radar antennas from wind, weather, and the prying eyes of adversaries, marked and maintained the geographic boundaries of America’s Cold War. The radome’s unique architecture, most commonly a rigid geodesic dome, captured the essential tensions of the Cold War, instantly recognisable but inaccessible; transparent (to radio waves) but opaque (to the naked eye); highly classified but often hidden in plain sight. Along the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line inside the Arctic Circle in Canada and in the arid desert of the Australian outback, radomes became the telltale signs of US surveillance and spy bases; a network constructed in partnership with American allies but politically fraught for their host countries, which had little political or technical control over them. Those bases, and the communities that grew up around them, have endured, but their new missions have raised troubling new questions of national sovereignty, dependency, and privacy.

摘要

雷达罩是保护敏感雷达天线免受风、天气和对手窥探的标志性结构，标志着并维护了美国冷战的地理边界。天线罩独特的建筑，最常见的是刚性测地圆顶，捕捉了冷战的基本紧张局势，一眼就能认出但难以接近；透明（对无线电波）但不透明（对肉眼）；高度机密，但通常隐藏在显眼的地方。在加拿大北极圈内的远距离预警 (DEW) 线和澳大利亚内陆干旱的沙漠中，雷达罩成为美国监视和间谍基地的明显标志；一个与美国盟国合作建立的网络，但东道国在政治上充满压力，而东道国对他们几乎没有政治或技术控制。那些基地，