Background On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. The disaster was the second fatal accident in the Space Shuttle program after Space Shuttle Challenger, which broke apart and killed the seven-member crew 73 seconds after liftoff in 1986. During the launch of STS-107, Columbia’s 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. A few previous shuttle launches had seen damage ranging from minor to major from foam shedding, but some engineers suspected that the…
Author: John Greenewald
Background The Navy Bumblebee program was created at the end of WW-II to develop a defense against the Japanese kamikaze threat. The program was to develop a jet propelled, guided anti-aircraft missile. The result was the Navy’s 3-T Missiles – Talos, Terrier and Tartar. While initial efforts were concentrated on developing the Talos ram-jet engine, a solid rocket propelled test vehicle to develop missile steering designs was recognized as capable of providing a simpler interim weapon for smaller ships, resulting in the Terrier two stage missile and the later single stage Tartar with solid fuel dual thrust rocket motor. The…
Background This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process. The Declassified Memo The FISA Memo: Foreign…
Background The current views on the origin of life on Earth are discussed briefly, with special emphasis on the chemical evolution of the Earth’s primitive atmosphere which was the opening step towards the origin of life. The various forms of shock-waves in the atmosphere: Thunder, meteorite shocks and explosive volcanic eruptions are shown to have been of major importance in the atmospheric evolution, because of their very high efficiency in changing the atmospheric composition and in the formation of the building blocks of life. The Document Shock Waves and the Origin of Life, January 1977 [45 Pages, 5.2MB] https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/dtic/2011-41.pdf
Background Explanation and prediction of military R&D in the USSR requires consideration of the system as a whole. Only in context can one make sense of the array of specific strengths and weaknesses found in any undertaking as complex as the way a country acquires its weapons. Although it may approach being a cliche to note the existence of national assymetries and the problems they introduce into analysis, nevertheless they are only infrequently taken into account. In this paper the author is concerned explicitly with how Soviet institutions, constraints, incentives, and values influence the process of Soviet weapons design. The…