Background According to the document: The “Electro-ring” concept of using electron rings in space for energy storage originated with the author during Rand studies of radiation (laser, particle beam) weapon systems in space. The requirement for large energy sources in space to support military radiation systems is evident from this work, as reported in R-1802-ARPA, Electron Rings in space for Energy Storage (U), and other Rand studies on space-based weapon systems. The space systems considered here have been examined on an exploratory basis only. The research has focused on applications, under the tacit assumption that the formulated electron beam (e-beam)…
Author: John Greenewald
The following documents are about the research and intelligence about the former Soviet Union’s weapon capability during the post WWII and Cold War eras. Cost as a Factor in Soviet Weapons Decisionmaking [9 Pages, 610KB] – Intuitively, one believes that cost ought to be a significant decisionmaking factor in the Soviet weapons acquisition process. If that is indeed true, then DoD decisionmakers should be quite interested in when, how, and to what extent cost shapes the outcome of the Soviet weapons acquisition process. However, interest alone is not enough. There must also be sufficient data available about the role that…
Background The background to how this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request played out is the most interesting part of this. It started with seeing reference to the document in a bibliography about Air Force Plant 67, or the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory. The Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory, also known as AFP No. 67, for Air Force Plant 67 was a United States Air Force test facility located in the Dawson Forest in Dawsonville, Georgia. It was the site of Lockheed’s lab for investigating the feasibility of nuclear aircraft. The site was used for irradiating military equipment, as well as the…
Background According to the document: This project analyzed Soviet national television by investigating the following topics. All programming was taped from First Program (channel) received in real-time (Moscow time) from the Ghorizont geostationary communications satellite. 1. The broadcast day: two full days of First Program-October 22 and 24, 1987 (approximately twenty-eight hours of programming)–analyzed in detail. 2. The newspaper base-line: television and the newspaper system–consistency and disparity in stories and themes between television and individual newspapers. Compared were Central Television and Literaturnaya Gazeta, ,Moscow News, and Pravda. 3. Lag-time and news coverage: comparison of Soviet and American news for July…
Background According to the report: “We have audited the accompanying financial statements of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which comprise the balance sheet as of September 30, 2015, the related statement of net cost and changes in net position, and the combined statement of budgetary resources (hereinafter referred to as the “financial statements”) for the year then ended, as well as the related notes to the financial statements. Management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America; this includes the design, implementation, and…