Background The task was to survey the entire field of advanced propulsion to uncover and carry out a technical assessment of any concept that showed promise of leading to a major advance in available energy sources for space power and propulsion in the next century. In general we were to consider any concept that might derive energy from the space environment, as well as any unconventional methods of storing energy in a compact form that may have applicability to space power and propulsion. The best of these were to be selected for investigation in Phase 2 of the contract. We…
Author: John Greenewald
Background POPPY is the code name given to a series of U.S. intelligence satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office. The POPPY satellites recorded ELINT data, targeting radar installations in the Soviet Union and Soviet naval ships at sea. The POPPY program was a continuation within NRO’s Program C of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Galactic Radiation and Background (GRAB) ELINT program, also known as Tattletale. The National Security Agency was given the responsibility of collecting, interpreting, and reporting the signals intercepted. The existence of the POPPY program was declassified by the NRO in September 2005, although most of the details…
Background Each month, the USDA publishes the MyUSDA newsletter. Although many have been published online, it appears the USDA stopped in March of 2017 from posting them publicly. Below, you will find the newsletters never posted by the USDA. Document Archive MyUSDA Newsletters – United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) May 2017 – October 2017 [43 Pages, 9.5MB] https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/usda/2018-DA-04414-F.pdf
Background / Excerpt The American electoral process retains many vestiges reflecting its eighteenth century origins. In the age of supersonic transport and email, U.S. citizens select their national leadership on a timetable derived from the speed of carriages and town criers. In the past, in the transition periods following elections, the Central Intelligence Agency has been the manager for general orientations about the foreign intelligence community and for specific, classified briefings on topics of concern to the incoming administration. In 2000 the National Security Agency, for the first time, decided to engage more actively in the presidential transition briefing process. The issues for NSA were not small. For those in the new administration for…
Background This video was declassified and released to The Black Vault in NRO Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Case F-2017-00169 and F-2017-00170. Both cases were answered with a single response and release of two videos — Hexagon: Sentinel of Liberty and Gambit: Eye of the Eagle. Although released before, these videos were at a higher resolution than previously released. Document Archive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request Response: