Area 51 No Longer (Officially) a Secret

schnell writes "The first-ever declassified story of Area 51's origin is now available, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act filed years ago by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The (only lightly redacted) document is actually primarily a history of the U-2 and A-12 ("Oxcart") spy plane programs from the Cold War, but is remarkable for being the first-ever official unclassified acknowledgment of Area 51's purpose and its role in the program. Interesting tidbits include that the U-2 program was kicked off with a CIA check mailed personally to Lockheed Skunk Works chief Kelly Johnson for $1.25M; a U-2 was launched off an aircraft carrier to spy on French nuclear tests; and the U-2 delivery program itself was actually done under budget, a rarity for secret government programs then or now."

Comments

Re:Sounds like some of the story

[f3rret]

And what has it been doing for the last 20 years? then again i didnt RTFA

F-117, B-2, remote sensing gear for arms control/inspection, The Predator and global hawk drones, NERVA Rockets and probably those fancy stealth modified Black Hawks from Neptune Spear and comms and radar gear.

Just your average run-of-the-mill secret aerospace stuff.

Re:national geographic channel

[TWiTfan]

It's been a widely open secret for a long time. Everyone who wasn't a UFO kook has known that the place was used for testing experimental aircraft for decades now. A bunch of workers from there even sued the government a while back for medical conditions related to exposure to toxic chemicals (they were ordered to burn all kinds of experimental jet fuels and other nasty stuff while they worked there).

First declassified documents?

[darkain]

I guess all those documents from two years ago don't count, then?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389591/A-sneak-peek-inside-Area-51-Declassified-documents-offer-rare-glimpse-secretive-site-Earth.html

Re:False documents

[kimvette]

> "Um.. it'll work if we build it out of titanium! what do you mean we'll have to invent the machinery to make it happen? do it already!"

Completely false. They tried less exotic, more conventional materials before turning to titanium. They also wrestled with how to deal with thermal expansion - and the state of metallurgy at the time was such that the best way they could come up with to deal with it was to have gaps in the fuselage (including the fuel tanks!) at normal temperatures, which caused the tanks to leak until the fuselage came up to operating temperature. This is why after a Blackbird/Oxcart/etc. takes off they would immediately go supersonic to heat up the airframe so the designed-in leaks would seal up, then they would meet up with a tanker to refuel. The A-12/YF-12A/SR-71 was absolutely b;eeding edge at the time, and remained so in many ways even to this day. The only manned air-breathing aircraft which could match the "official" top speed of the Blackbird was the MiG-25, and such a sprint in that bird requires an immediate overhaul or replacement of the engines. The SR-71 could CRUISE up to and well past the published speed because it was constructed largely of titanium throughout.