Author Topic: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!  (Read 12865 times)

Offline nacnud

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Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« on: 01/10/2006 02:11 pm »
The space review has just put up an article on how the last skylab crew inadvertanly photographed Area 51 from orbit, a place that they weren't supposed to photograph and didn't officaly exitst, and the fun and games that caused between NASA, the CIA and NPIC :)

Offline David AF

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #1 on: 01/10/2006 03:29 pm »
This site should know better than to make a big deal out of USAF base Groomlake. It's pampering the Area 51/X-Files crowd.

A military facility is entitled to its privacy for reasons of security. There are no aliens at this facility ;)
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Offline UK Shuttle Clan

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #2 on: 01/10/2006 03:48 pm »
Why is it not on the map?

Offline Tahii

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #3 on: 01/10/2006 06:19 pm »
Heh, I was just making my way over here to post a link to this article, but someone beat me to it!

Its quite an interesting article, if only to highlight how a small bungle can create quite a stirr.

Offline Dana

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #4 on: 01/11/2006 07:10 am »
Quote
UK Shuttle Clan - 10/1/2006  8:48 AM

Why is it not on the map?

The title of this thread is somewhat misleading, in that it says the place doesn't exist. The facility does in fact exist-it's just not what the tinfoil-hat crowd thinks it is.

The highly-secret test facility at Groom Dry Lake, NV was originally a U.S. Army AF gunnery range in the war years. Later it became part of the the Atomic Energy Commission's atomic bomb-testing area. In the mid-1950s, when the Lockheed Skunk Works was developing the secret, glider-like jet spyplane that later became known as the U-2, they needed a place where they could test it, and by then, Edwards was too high-profile. So Kelly Johnson sent his legendary test pilot, Tony LeVier out scouting suitible locations in a company-owned Beechcraft. They needed a certain combination of isolation, space, and terrain (hidden by mountains, etc) and Tony found Groom Dry Lake. On old AEC test site maps, Groom Lake's general area was listed as "Area 51." So they lobbied to get the land from the AEC, with the help of certain USAF and CIA personnel, and set up the U-2 test site there in extreme secrecy. Groom Dry Lake had many of the same characteristics as Rogers (Muroc) Dry Lake at Edwards, with the added advantage that it was well away from prying eyes, unlike Edwards, which was pretty much the center of the aeronautical universe to the press at the time. The place was pretty much assembled from out of the cargo holds of C-54s and C-124s.

The U-2 did make its first flight there, and Groom Lake, A/K/A Area 51/The Ranch/Dreamland, became the type's early operations and training facility as well. Over time the facility was expanded, with long paved runways, and as the U-2 became more "public" (later tests were carried out at the isolated North Base at Edwards), the facility started to wind down a bit, until Lockheed got the green light to develop the U-2's successor, the "Blackbird" family (A-12, YF-12, M-21, SR-71). It was with the advent of these powerful Mach 3 bruisers that the facility, which has no official name that anyone knows of beyond "Nevada Test Site," really started to take off. It continued to expand as more and more exotic aircraft were tested there. If a type was a well-known, high-profile contract, such as the B-1 or various fighters, it was tested at Edwards, but if it was some hush-hush black project like the prototype Have Blue Stealth fighters (predecessors of the F-117) of the late 1970s, it was tested at Groom Lake. The site was also used to test captured Soviet aircraft, drones, and various electronic warfare and surveilance (sp) systems, as well as some real cutting-edge pure-research flight-test stuff that the Pentagon didn't want disclosed during the Cold War years for obvious reasons. Some of this technology is probably still under wraps to this day. Eventually Groom Lake got a paved runway that, if it officially "exists," would be in the Guiness Book as the world's longest.

Given the extreme secret nature of the site, that's why it's not on the map. I do have airport guides from way back that list the tower and approach frequencies, though, listed variously as "Dreamland Approach" and "Dreamland Control" as the approach freqs for known, nearby uncontrolled facilities like Yucca Flats and a few other strips surrounding the area, and it's pretty obvious where that facility is. That, and there are plenty of pictures of it. The problem is, with isolation and secrecy comes rumors, and when people started to find out about Groom Lake in the 1960s and 1970s, well, the location of the proverbial "Captured UFO" moved from "Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson" to "Area 51" (I don't think anybody who has worked there ever even called it that), and still later to a smaller facility that supposedly is dug into a mountain cave to the south known as "S4." I don't think there's anything quite THAT exotic out there :), but those are the stories. Adding to the mystique is the fact that yes, it's there but it's not on the map. Groom Lake, Dreamland, Area 51, whatever you want to call it, is actually the last place I would hide such a prize-it's pretty much the most famous secret place in the world! :)
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Offline Tahii

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #5 on: 01/11/2006 08:03 am »
Quote
Dana - 11/1/2006  7:10 PM
and still later to a smaller facility that supposedly is dug into a mountain cave to the south known as "S4." I don't think there's anything quite THAT exotic out there :), but those are the stories.
In Dale Brown's books, there is a facility described like that. Its not referred to as S4, but its in the general area as "Dreamland" (as it is called in his books). They're worth a read, they're really good.

Offline Dana

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #6 on: 01/11/2006 11:15 am »
1: December 2001 Ikonos imagery of the base (publicly available, declassified)

2. Corresponding location of the base on a Las Vegas VFR sectional (aeronautical navigation) chart
"Don't play dumb with me! You're not as good at it as I am!"-Col. Flagg

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Offline t walker

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #7 on: 01/11/2006 06:12 pm »
Any of you guys got Google Earth?

Seach area 51 on it its right there where it should be

(if you havn't then http://earth.google.com)

Offline Avron

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #8 on: 01/12/2006 03:32 am »
Quote
David AF - 10/1/2006  11:29 AM

This site should know better than to make a big deal out of USAF base Groomlake. It's pampering the Area 51/X-Files crowd.

A military facility is entitled to its privacy for reasons of security. There are no aliens at this facility ;)


I guess there are only US citizens at the base.. must have some aliens?

Offline dmc6960

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #9 on: 01/12/2006 05:28 am »
I was just on a flight from Phoenix to San Francisco which flew a little bit to the west of Groom Lake. Because of close examination of Google maps I did a few months ago, I was able to accurately locate it, including some of the larger bomb testing craters which are to the west of it. Certainly not so restricted that commercial airlines cannot fly within visible range of it. Nobody could know where it was though had they not studied the availible photos of the area. Groom Lake didn't seem so dry either, the northeast corner looked pretty wet from what I could see.
-Jim

Offline Dana

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #10 on: 01/12/2006 10:59 am »
Quote
dmc6960 - 11/1/2006  10:28 PM

Groom Lake didn't seem so dry either, the northeast corner looked pretty wet from what I could see.

That happens to dry lakes this time of year. That's why at Edwards, back in the rocket plane days especially, they tried to get everything done before November or December because the rains would come and make the lakebed almost unusable. Check out Milt Thompson's book and read about the Rogers Dry Lake waterskiing incident. :) And of course, there is the (slightly exaggerated) story about the time Neil Armstrong and Chuck Yeager got a T-33 stuck in the mud at Smith Ranch Lake while checking X-15 contingency lakes....Rogers Dry Lake (maybe Groom Lake too) has these ancient brine shrimp that hibernate in the lakebed most of the year and only come to life when the rains come-which brings out the seagulls even that far inland, which in itself is another safety hazard....then by early spring it heats up, the sediments settle as the water evaporates, the winds sandblast the surface, and you're back to that pool-table-flat lakebed runway again.
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Offline FransonUK

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #11 on: 01/12/2006 12:11 pm »
Why would they build it next door to a dry lake?

Everyone should have a secret base anyway :)
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Offline Hotol

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #12 on: 01/12/2006 12:45 pm »
We've got a couple, but they aren't very secret......not enough land to hide them.

Offline Chris Bergin

RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #13 on: 01/12/2006 01:22 pm »
The Golfballs at RAF Flyingdales is meant to be secret, but isn't. Tracking centre on the North York Moors. Very nice base, but right next to a main road. I'll try and google earth it.
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Offline nacnud

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #14 on: 01/12/2006 01:29 pm »
Quote
...but they aren't very secret...

You can say that again :)



Offline Justin Space

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #15 on: 01/12/2006 01:39 pm »
I bet it's really to the right and that's a muse to take you off the scent ;)

Offline James Lowe1

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #16 on: 01/12/2006 01:44 pm »
Is that sign real of photoshop!?

Offline nacnud

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #17 on: 01/12/2006 01:48 pm »
It's real!

Offline Hotol

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #18 on: 01/12/2006 03:29 pm »
Red rag to a bull, I'd want to go have a look.

Offline t walker

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RE: Skylab photographed non-existant airport!
« Reply #19 on: 01/12/2006 05:11 pm »
That place in yorkshire, you can see it really plainly from the north yorkshire moors railway.

Not exactly hidden, its got a preserved railway running straight past it.

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