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:False documents

[gl4ss]

kelly johnson was an engineering god and he didn't run the projects to just pump money out of government. of course back then the guys were probably actually motivated, that they felt a real need to build u2, a12 etc.. and their plan to pump more money out of government was to keep churning out cool stuff instead of extending one project to last their entire professional career.

"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!"
14 rules for saving cash:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)#Kelly_Johnson.27s_14_Rules_of_Management

"Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised."

Kelly Johson was a genius

[plopez]

If you look at the aircraft that came out of the skunk works you'll know what I mean. He and his organization came up with the P-38, the U-2, the C-130, and the SR-71; to name only a few achievements. It makes most people in tech look like little kiddies playing in a sandbox.

Re:Kelly Johson was a genius

[stjobe]

From wikipedia:

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird holds the official Air Speed Record for a manned airbreathing jet aircraft with a speed of 3,530 km/h (2,193 mph). It was capable of taking off and landing unassisted on conventional runways. The record was set on 28 July 1976 by Eldon W. Joersz and George T. Morgan Jr. near Beale Air Force Base, California, US

There's non-official (e.g. Brian Shul's book Sled Driver) reports of speeds up to Mach 3.5 (4,200 kph or 2,600 mph), but those aren't official. Different official and unofficial analyses of the materials and production techniques of the SR-71 strongly suggest that it was incapable of reaching much more than Mach 3.5 (among other things the pressure wave from the nose would enter the engine intake and unstart the engine; also the metal divider on the windshield got so hot at those speeds it threatened the integrity of the windshield).

So yeah, official word would be great, but there is little doubt the SR-71 was capable of Mach 3.5 but not much more than that.