Message posted by Richard C on September 27, 2000 at 11:43:45 EST:
Gary, I think the programs are first though up at Wright Patterson AFB, then they are contracted out to manufacturing companies like Northrop, if which design their own concept. It then gets dicussed by the team at APAFB and the Contracter whether or not its going to be scrapped at the drawing board or carried on into the senior Design phase. Probably a huge percentage of the workers at Groom Lake never get to see any program fly or even taxi/runway test because alot of the testing times have been in the past, after or before the majority of the workers even get into the base. I doubt in my mind that the KGB ever infiltrated the base at all. From what it seems they havent gained a huge amount of knowledge from what has COME out of the base after all this time anyway. Remember when the Nighthawk got shot down in Serbia and the ruskies swarmed over the plane the days after, then it was transported back to russia, then i believe it was transported to Iraq? Like Magoo mentioned, the best place to go, is not at the plane testing, but for getting BLUEPRINTS of the designs, so the best place to go is either WPAFB or the contractor itself. Its where the most valuable information is located, whats better than the Blueprints? nothing. They are the most important thing for design and testing. Yes they have the blueprints at Groom Lake, but they would be so highly secured in vaults, i doubt any KGB officer would even gain access. There is a time where the average Groom Lake worker or, for that matter a contracted worker for the designers etc might of spied for the KGB in certain areas. Its been done everywhere, and no base facility is clean of this, or atleast was not in the Cold War. For the Area, i expect the NTS had quite alot of KGB spies who were actually american citizens working for the EG&G and Johnsons, plus other companies. Afterall, EG&G were the number one contractor at NTS for all of the Atomic tests, above and below ground. Every photo and video you see is done by EG&G Atomic Film makers. Cheers
It then goes onto Development, for building the actual program and modifying it as this goes along.
Alot of the developing is actually done in the facility which is is born in. Higher and further development will then be carried out at places such as Groom Lake, which then goes into the Testing and Development phase.
Its probably only the highest level of operatives/workers that see the tests carried , because they will be part of the development/testing phase.
So it seems the russians havent really got the knowledge from that base, else they would of developed something'very' similar. Like they have done in the past. Take many examples of aircraft or land based systems that the KGB infiltrated on, a few years later the Russians had similar designs, only patents preventing them from exactly copying.
Richard C
In Reply to: Re: Groom Lake Infiltration posted by Gary Sellani on September 27, 2000 at 00:25:30 EST:
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