Onizuka AFS History: Land Purchase

Inclosed (sic) is a letter from Lockheed Aircraft Corporation offering to transfer to the Air Force, without cost, a 11.4 acre site adjacent to the Sentry Production Plant at Sunnyvale, California for the construction of the Sentry Development Control Center 2. A survey was made of all government-owned property in the vicinity of San Francisco,Continue reading “Onizuka AFS History: Land Purchase”

Video: OV-103 Discovery in the NRP

Here’s a video I created a few years ago based off some NRO-released information. I’m still chipping away a the large chunk of information linking [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] to the space shuttle program. Unlike most of the humans born in or near the 21st Century, I’m still working on my video editing skills. Maybe IContinue reading “Video: OV-103 Discovery in the NRP”

Chronology Of NASA-NRO Interaction: 1961-Present

Source: “Sharing Space: The Secret Interaction Between NASA and the NRO: 1961-1995.” 1957 October: Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite, ushering in the space age and the space race. 1958 January: United States launches its first satellite, Explorer-1, aboard Army Jupiter-C booster. February: United States begins work on a film-return photo reconnaissanceContinue reading “Chronology Of NASA-NRO Interaction: 1961-Present”

New NRO Monograph: Sharing Space

I got this in the mail a week or two ago. I expected a stuffy manuscript of early NRO-NASA interactions up to the UPWARD series during the Apollo years. Boy, was I surprised… To name a few of the NASA and NRO programs covered within: Lunar Orbiter (reusing SAMOS hardware) Lunar Mapping and Survey SystemContinue reading “New NRO Monograph: Sharing Space”

Onizuka AFS history talk post-event thoughts

It’s funny to think that while I work with Timing (with a capital “T”), timing has never been my strong suit. When I started researching early book projects, I was usually a “day late, and a dollar short.” People who had worked on systems or in places I wanted to write about had already passedContinue reading “Onizuka AFS history talk post-event thoughts”

An unexpected small reminder to “Never Forget”

Even with the location of Kirtland Air Force Base being within the city limits of Albuquerque, I would never think of this place as “a military town.” That moniker usually sticks to towns outside of Army posts that have a pathway of liquor stores, pawn shops, and (often) strip joints up to the entry checkpoint.Continue reading “An unexpected small reminder to “Never Forget””

Riddle Me This… Gambit PET Reports

At some point over the last Christmas break, I got bored. I should have been planning my post-graduation future (oh, wait… I’m already employed), but I spent many hours making incessant FOIA requests to the NRO. If you want to know what excess is – there were 38 (KH-7) GAMBIT and 54 (KH-8) GAMBIT-3 launches.Continue reading “Riddle Me This… Gambit PET Reports”