From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #292 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Wednesday, 7 June 1995 Volume 05 : Number 292 In this issue: RADC and Laredo, TX - Addendum Classified Space Shuttle Missions Still two sets of the SR slides available Re: Classified Space Shuttle Missions An Air Force saucer? Re: An Air Force saucer? 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: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 04:05:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RADC and Laredo, TX - Addendum I just took a look at the home page of the USAF Rome Laboratory (RL), which originally was the Rome Air Development Center (RADC), at: http://www.rl.af.mil:8001/ and looked through their history pages. Here are the only references I could find (in the history files for 1955, 1956, 1960, and 1961). Not much, but a little bit more information, than I had before: * 1955: Laredo Site An operations building for a high-power long-range radar facility was completed at Laredo, Texas. RADC was responsible for the installation and operation of this radar site, even though funds for construction came from a special Air Force appropriation rather than from the RADC budget. * 1956: In Texas, the Center's Laredo test facility became operational. * 1960: Laredo Test Site The Laredo test site assumed the function of tracking artificial satellites and reporting the data to Project "Harvest Moon" (later known as "Space Track"). * 1961: Trinidad and Laredo Test Sites Operational and maintenance jurisdiction over the test sites at Trinidad and Laredo was transferred from RADC on 1 July. I have no idea, which 'special Air Force appropriation' paid for the Laredo Test Site, nor do I know to which organization the responsibility for Laredo went, on July 1, 1961. Maybe someone else has more information? - -- Andreas - --- --- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Pahl E-Mail: schnars@ais.org 313 West Court St. #305 or: gpahl@raptor.csc.flint.umich.edu Flint, MI 48502-1239 Tel: (810) 238-8469 WWW URL: http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~schnars/ - --- --- ------------------------------ From: "Roger Guillemette" Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:03:05 -0400 Subject: Classified Space Shuttle Missions While this request does not precisely fit the guidelines of a "Skunk Works" type project, I'm hoping that a few readers might have some knowledge of where I should start looking. I am starting to put together a set of FOIA requests for certain information concerning several of the classified DoD Space Shuttle missions that were flown in the 1980s. The list of NASA offices to FOIA is not the problem; the problem will come when NASA returns the request, referring the matter back to the Air Force or the DoD under the guise of 'national security.' Does anyone have any suggestions of what offices/departments within the Air Force or the DoD were directly responsible for pre-flight training and actual mission control/mission operations during the classified Space Shuttle flights? The intention, of course, would be to direct FOIA requests to those offices. If you wish to contact me by E-Mail, I can be reached at 76374.203@compuserve.com or rguillemette@gtech.com. Thank you. [Please note that this is an individual request and not related to business in any manner] ---Roger Guillemette ------------------------------ From: Ron Schweikert Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:42:27 -0600 Subject: Still two sets of the SR slides available Sorry to bother everyone with this again. There are still two sets of slides that people ordered that never followed up, even after several postings and mail, so I will now make them available to the list (I think two months has been plenty of time! :-) ). Email me if you'd like to reserve a set. First come, first served. Thanks for the feedback from everyone who ordered. It was a pleasure to make them available to fellow Habu enthusiasts. Cheers! Ron rons@xvt.com (for now) ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:58:44 PDT Subject: Re: Classified Space Shuttle Missions "guise" of national security? Seems pretty important to me. Are you implying that this is some sort of conspiracy on the governments part? Should I join the militia? Chuck Smith "Aerospace Engineer to the Stars" Member of the conspiracy? ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Tue, 06 Jun 95 13:04:18 EST Subject: An Air Force saucer? The following article should be of some interest to Area 51ers, among others. Those of you that have read Vallee's recent work will remember that he'd gotten wind of unpiloted USAF saucer platforms; well, here's one for real, apparently. Unfortunately, this is all I know. Amogn other questions: if it has wings, in what way is it "saucer- shaped?" Bruce Wright (AP) - The Pentagon unveiled a $10 million saucer-shaped reconnaissance plane it says will be able to detect a basketball on the ground from 45,000 feet high, even in poor weather. The pilotless plane, dubbed DarkStar, was shown Thursday at the Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works plant where it was built. The craft has yet to be flight tested, but the Air Force officials hailed it as the wave of the future. "In the next century, we will definitely rely more on pilotless aircraft to place people out of harm's way," said Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. Israel. "We need to know what's on the battlefield before we get on the battlefield." The 15-foot plane has a wing span of 69 feet and stands 5 foot high. It cruises at about180 mph. It's designed to launch and land automatically, with a range of 500 miles and the ability to stay aloft for more than 8 hours. Ground controllers would instruct the plane via satellite. With its special cameras and radar, DarkStar is supposed to be able to scan 1,600 nautical square miles at a time for enemy movements. DarkStar, Officially known as the Tier III Minus unmanned aerial vehicle, is under development by Lockheed-Martin and Boeing Aircraft. Flight tests will begin in august at Edwards Air Force Base and should wrap up by 1998. ------------------------------ From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 16:22:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: An Air Force saucer? > The following article should be of some interest to Area 51ers, among others. > Those of you that have read Vallee's recent work will remember that he'd > gotten wind of unpiloted USAF saucer platforms; well, here's one for real, > apparently. Unfortunately, this is all I know. No, its definitely not a "saucer" as such. About the closest thing to a real saucer platform would probably be the Sikorsky Cypher drone. > Amogn other questions: if it has wings, in what way is it "saucer- shaped?" The fuselage is roughly saucer-shaped, but when you slap 70-foot wings on it then its no longer much of a "flying saucer" in my book at least. :) ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #292 ********************************* 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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