The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the “Star Wars program”, was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles). The concept was announced on March 23, 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a “suicide pact”. Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of…
Author: John Greenewald
(This page was originally published Jul 27, 2021. The date above is the last revision date.) Background Back in late 1967/early 1968, NASA had transferred a cache of documents to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The transmittal slip, and index of records, labeled them as, “NASA Fragology Files consisting of reports of space objects recovery, analysis of fragments to determine national ownership and vehicle origin.” In 1996, NARA had told NASA in the letter shown below, that the boxes of material transferred were “lost,” and they were marked as such even going back to 1987. The hunt for…
The following is a case that has been around the field of UFO research, known as UFOlogy, for many decades. But, it is rarely talked about nowadays, as sightings from the 1960s are often overshadowed by more modern events. As the story goes here, during the Gemini XI mission which flew from September 12 to 15, 1966, astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. and Richard F. Gordon Jr. performed the first-ever direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous with an Agena Target Vehicle. However, in addition to their mission, they encountered something they could not explain – and even captured multiple photographs of it.…
This paper presents evidence of a visual astronomical computer which would have enabled Maya astronomer-priests to accomplish complex astronomical calculations simply and accurately. Their observations were recorded in hieroglyphic books, in which they developed tables for prediction. Three surviving books-the Dresden, Paris, and Madrid codices-contain such tables, with the explanations and specific applications. Document Archive The Maya Astronomical Computer, by Charles H. Lacombe and [REDACTED], Winter 1977 [23 Pages, 13.2MB]
CASI’s mission is to advance understanding of the capabilities, development, operating concepts, strategy, doctrine, personnel, organization, and limitations of China’s aerospace forces, which include: the PLA Air Force (PLAAF); PLA Naval Aviation (PLAN Aviation); PLA Rocket Force (PLARF); PLA Army (PLAA) Aviation; the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF), primarily space and cyber; and the civilian and commercial infrastructure that supports the above. CASI supports the U.S. Defense Department and the China research community writ-large by providing high quality, unclassified research on Chinese aerospace developments in the context of U.S. strategic imperatives in the Asia-Pacific region. Primarily focused on China’s Military…