Season 2 · Episode 193
Eyes in the Sky: The Physics of Global Missile Detection
Herman and Corn explore the high-stakes tech used to detect missile launches from thousands of miles away using infrared and radar systems.
My Weird Prompts · Daniel Rosehill
January 8, 202629m 54s
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (dts.podtrac.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
In this episode of My Weird Prompts, Herman and Corn peel back the layers of global missile defense systems to answer a listener's question about how we sense threats from thousands of kilometers away. They discuss the critical transition from legacy satellite systems like SBIRS to the Next-Gen OPIR and the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). The duo dives deep into the "look-down problem," explaining how sensors distinguish a rocket’s chemical fingerprint from the "noise" of forest fires and solar reflections. From the historic 1983 Petrov incident to the physics of Mach disks and the engineering of phased array radars that see over the horizon, this conversation covers the incredible invisible infrastructure working at light speed to keep the world informed and safe.