Hans Mark was really a curious man. I think he was under influence of von Braun and had a little too much love for manned spaceflight. Some decisions he made at Ames (he was the center director from 1969 - 77), NRO and later as NASA deputy administrator were controversials. I often wonder why the Pioneer probe program was dropped after Pioneer-Venus ?
Quote from: Archibald on 08/09/2017 11:51 AMHans Mark was really a curious man. I think he was under influence of von Braun and had a little too much love for manned spaceflight. Some decisions he made at Ames (he was the center director from 1969 - 77), NRO and later as NASA deputy administrator were controversials. I often wonder why the Pioneer probe program was dropped after Pioneer-Venus ?He only seems curious to you because you obviously disagree with some of the decisions he made.
1-Nice article, by the way. Interesting as usual. 2-Can't wait for part 3 - bringing spent KH-9s down to Earth. 3-Should give some limited hindsight about how hard it would have been to bring Hubble to Earth (as was more or less planned before STS-107).
Hans Mark was really a curious man. I think he was under influence of von Braun and had a little too much love for manned spaceflight. Some decisions he made at Ames (he was the center director from 1969 - 77), NRO and later as NASA deputy administrator were controversials.
The reason is that they were going to shut down the C-130 recovery squadron in Hawaii.
QuoteThe reason is that they were going to shut down the C-130 recovery squadron in Hawaii.Why would it be shut down ? Seems as if somebody decided - enough capsules, the KH-11 can do both KH-8 and KH-9 jobs without any expensive C-130 recovery squadron.
Quote from: Archibald on 08/10/2017 07:20 AMQuoteThe reason is that they were going to shut down the C-130 recovery squadron in Hawaii.Why would it be shut down ? Seems as if somebody decided - enough capsules, the KH-11 can do both KH-8 and KH-9 jobs without any expensive C-130 recovery squadron. It was expensive. They had something like 10 C-130s, 6 helicopters, and over 500 personnel. And they had a high state of operational readiness, which meant that the had a high budget (for spare parts and stuff).<snip>
They had something like 10 C-130s, 6 helicopters
Quote from: Blackstar on 08/10/2017 03:59 PMQuote from: Archibald on 08/10/2017 07:20 AMQuoteThe reason is that they were going to shut down the C-130 recovery squadron in Hawaii.Why would it be shut down ? Seems as if somebody decided - enough capsules, the KH-11 can do both KH-8 and KH-9 jobs without any expensive C-130 recovery squadron. It was expensive. They had something like 10 C-130s, 6 helicopters, and over 500 personnel. And they had a high state of operational readiness, which meant that the had a high budget (for spare parts and stuff).<snip>Did the recovery squadron have a "cover" mission?
As a side-note, I enjoyed the Babylon 5 references that Dwayne used to work into his article titles for The Space Review.I hope it would be possible to continue that theme, if the author desires?Just a thought.
Sometime in late 1977 I was at a social event in Honolulu that was mostly astronomers - except for one obviously military guy whose shirt said "6594th Test Group" in big letters, and the unit's (unofficial) insignia. I remember someone asked him "Are there 6,593 other Test Groups?". The only thing covert about these units was that they didn't have a press officer cranking out releases about every minor event. Since Hickham AFB and Honolulu International Airport share the same runways and taxiways, their aircraft were taking off and landing in plain view of thousands of tourists all the time. And the big tracking antenna radome on top made it clear that they weren't ordinary Hercs. These planes should have been located at NAS Barbers Point alongside the Navy's secret units, but of course interservice rivalry prevented that.
No, but the HC-130s used to refuel the Jolly's did.
The insignia was official.Radomes?. JC-130 didn't have them.
Quote from: Jim on 08/12/2017 01:20 AMThe insignia was official.Radomes?. JC-130 didn't have them.some did.http://6594thtestgroup.org/images/57-0526.jpg
This idea that a polar-orbit launch over the North Pole could be mistaken for an ICBM attack crops up all the time, but it is completely mistaken. The ICBM minimum-energy trajectory is about 600 miles up as it crosses the pole and can't be mistaken for a LEO launch that will be less than 150 miles up. The ICBM will pop up over the radar horizon at a much longer range, and a short tracking arc quickly determines the impact point. The orbital target, of course, has no predicted impact point. The only confusion might arise with a depressed-trajectory or fractional-orbit system. The only such system was the Soviet 9K69 "R-36O" Global Rocket which was deployed in 18 silos at Baikonur from 1969 to 1983. This put its 5MT warhead into a very low orbit over the SOUTH pole, and brought it down on target with a retro-rocket. Its location at Baikonur suggest that its designers actually did hope that its launches would be misidentified as an orbital launch -- but I have never seen this claim in print.
You are using sane deduction free from paranoia, thinking that wasn't always used during the Cold War.