From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #288 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Saturday, 3 June 1995 Volume 05 : Number 288 In this issue: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #287 Nuclear Powered SSTOs Nuclear Powered SSTOs (fwd) Jack Anderson on Roswell Balloon/UFO Crash Dark Star Re: Dark Star To: skunk-works@gaia.ucs.orst.edu See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Thomas A. Gauldin" Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 09:35:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #287 Speaking of Colorado, I couldn't help from noticing some huge "domes" on the East side of Denver when coming into Stapelton last year. A relative in Denver said that nobody knew what they were for. Do any "Skunkers" have an idea? Thomas A. Gauldin Here's to the land of the longleaf pine, Raleigh, NC The summerland where the sun doth shine, BSRB45A on Prodigy Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, FAX (919) 676-1404 Here's to Downhome, the Old North State. ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 10:52:29 -0700 Subject: Nuclear Powered SSTOs Byron Weber writes: >Interesting. The Feds probably no longer need plutonium triggers. >With EG&G's experience in nuclear stuff, they are the obvious >candidate to assist in the developement of new generation aircraft, >nuclear powered, something that might go mach 25 or whatever a >TAV needs for escape velocity. The Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program was cancelled in 1961. Brian D. Bikowicz, one of our skunk-works members, published a nice paper about ANP back in 1992. There are some real gems in the bib too. For example, a paper written by Kelly Johnson on nuclear powered aircraft. No, you don't need nuke to go orbital. The simplest and yet the hardest part of it these days, seems to be the "will to do it", borrowing a quote from Werner Von Braun. Larry ------------------------------ From: megazone@world.std.com (MegaZone) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 15:16:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Nuclear Powered SSTOs (fwd) Once upon a time larry@ichips.intel.com shaped the electrons to say... >Brian D. Bikowicz, one of our skunk-works members, published a nice >paper about ANP back in 1992. There are some real gems in the bib too. >For example, a paper written by Kelly Johnson on nuclear powered >aircraft. I'm flattered... I've since HTML'd the beast and put it in my Web area. There is a link from my home page (which is currently in dire need of an upgrade, I've added new stuff and just thrown a link in for now...) to the paper. I split it into intro, technology, politics, conclusions, endnotes, biblio, and appendix. It is also in my FTP site as it has been for a while as a gzipped ASCII file. I also recently saved another article on nuke aircraft from the nets and when I have time I am going to HTML that and put it up wiht the paper. - -- megazone@world.std.com (508) 752-2164 MegaZone's Waste Of Time Moderator: anime fanfic archive, ftp.std.com /archives/anime-fan-works; rec.arts.anime.stories - Maintainer: Ani Difranco Mailing List - Mail to majordomo@world.std.com with 'subscribe ani-difranco' in the body. ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Fri, 02 Jun 95 12:53:01 EST Subject: Jack Anderson on Roswell Balloon/UFO Crash from the IUFOG: HEADLINE: What occurred at Roswell, N.M. still raises questions by Jack Anderson United Features Syndicate Investigators at the General Accounting Office are quietly skeptical about whether the U.S. Air Force told the truth when responding to a controversial request for information by a member of Congress in 1993. So far, however, investigators are not planning to voice their concerns in public or in a report to be released next month. At issue are events that took place nearly half a century ago in Roswell, N.M. the so-called Roswell incident and whether the Air Force has told the truth about what it knows. Over the years, the Roswell Incident has become a cornerstone of UFO myth, chronicled frequently on television and in at least four books. It all began in July 1947, when a rancher northwest of Roswell found debris from a crashed object he thought was a flying saucer. Aluminum foil-like bits and pieces were reported to be impervious to burning or ripping, and returned to their original shape after crumpling. When the Army Air Force investigated, the first official press release issued by local officers declared that the military had found the remnants of a flying saucer. Within hours, however, higher-ups declared the press release a mistake and explained that the debris was merely a downed weather balloon. The story died for decades until the late 1970s, when television picked up on the story. Consistent denials by the Air Force and the disappearance of related documents only added fuel for the conspiracy theorists. The issue finally made it to Capitol Hill when a UFO skeptic, Rep. Steven H. Schiff, R-N.M., decided to get to the bottom of things. In March 1993 he asked the Air Force to declassify and provide him with all material relating to the incident. But rather than search through their own records, Air Force officials referred Schiff to the National Archives a move that Schiff took as an insult. The Archives promptly told Schiff it had no information. Typically, the Pentagon is eager to comply with congressional requests for information, a Schiff spokesman told us. Yet they just shunted us off to the Archives. Seven months later, Schiff called in the GAO (the investigative arm of Congress) to look for documents and to find out if the Air Force lied to him. Once the GAO launched its inquiry, the Air Force suddenly found documents not in the National Archives, but in their own files. They issued a short report last September claiming the debris was part of Project Mogul, and experiment aimed at detecting future Soviet nuclear blasts by monitoring sound waves in the atmosphere using airborne balloons and sensors. At the time of the Roswell Incident, however, the Soviets were still two years away from building their first nuclear bomb. Though the GAO is not satisfied with the Air Force explanation, it has confirmed the existence of Project Mogul. GAO officials add emphatically that no one involved in the audit believes the Air Force is covering up a UFO incident. But we do believe that something did happen at Roswell, said one source close to the investigation. Something big. We don't know if it was a plane that crashed with a nuclear device on it ... or if it was some other experimental situation. But everything we've seen so far points to an attempt on the part of the Air Force to lead anybody that looks at this down another track. The Air Force predicts it will get a clean bill of health from the GAO. A GAO spokesman angrily predicted we'd be eembarrassed if we suggested their soon-to-be-issued report was slated to be accusatory. While our sources say the Air Force has been less than forthcoming, the GAO may not make the case in its upcoming report especially since it might imply that the GAO believes a UFO landed at Roswell. We will tend to err on the side of not fueling UFO theories, one GAO official explained. ------------------------------ From: chosa@chosa.win.net (Byron Weber) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 1995 17:29:31 Subject: Dark Star Did I hear right? About 6pm, June 1, 1995, a CBS affiliate radio station in Los Angeles announced the disclosure of a Lockheed-Martin, Skunkworks, unmanned stealth recon vehicle named the Dark Star. Max. 8 hours flight time, alt. 45,000 ft. (max.alt.still classified), subsonic speed 250 mph with on board computer. Just caught the end of the release, something about tail less. Searched several newspapers today, not one word. Us Skunk enthusiasts must be in the minority. ------------------------------ From: ac242@lafn.org (Bill Coss) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 20:37:04 -0700 Subject: Re: Dark Star > >Did I hear right? > >About 6pm, June 1, 1995, a CBS affiliate radio station in Los >Angeles announced the disclosure of a Lockheed-Martin, Skunkworks, >unmanned stealth recon vehicle named the Dark Star. Max. 8 hours >flight time, alt. 45,000 ft. (max.alt.still classified), subsonic >speed 250 mph with on board computer. Just caught the end of the >release, something about tail less. Searched several newspapers >today, not one word. Us Skunk enthusiasts must be in the minority. > > > L.A. Times June 2, 1995 A Star Is Born A pilotless reconnaissance craft called the Darkstar was unveiled Thursday in Palmdale. Public unveiling took place in Palmdale at Lockheed/Martin Skunkworks. Tier III-. Alt. 45,000ft. 180MPH.Cruising Speed Wingspan 69ft. 5ft. high Synthetic Aperature Radar Electro-optical cameras able to scan 1600 sq. mi. 8600 lbs. Est. cost $10 mil. Controlled by satellite This is the jist of the article in the Valley section. Soo "Oh MY Gawd" 73 Bill - -- p q x  ------------------------------ From: William Moore Date: Fri, 2 Jun 95 21:59:38 PDT Subject: To: skunk-works@gaia.ucs.orst.edu Question: What mission is the Aurora Project speculated to fulfill? Is it a new generation SR-71 to be used for reconnaisance, high speed interceptor, or is it a technology demonstrator? Bill Moore (wmoore@anderson.ucla.edu) ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #288 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. 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