"Baxter, Stephen - Marginalia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

methods and precedents to the Mars program.
(I was e-mailed with the news that someone had called into a talk show in Phoenix,
Arizona, and claimed to be the man who had run the security operation for NASA during
that period, He claimed that four astronauts died in missions that were squelched by
NASA. And he said he had the truth about Apollo 13. Never heard from again. Probably
a flake.)
The entire Mars program was run out of Southern Nevada, at a (so-called) atomic test
station called the Nevada test site: a thousand square miles of Nevada desert.
Why there?
It is an area of hills, mountain peaks, desert valleys draining into dry lake beds. The
lunar-like terrain is a warren of dark tunnels and secret facilities. You'd spot a car miles
away from its dust cloud; anybody else walking would be the only moving objects in the
landscape. And who would go there? Even by 1970 it had reputation as a forbidden
region, soaked in radioactivity.
The most likely sites of the USAF Mars facility are those least used by the AEC,
notably Yucca Flat and Camp Desert Rock, aka area 22.
Here's another good reason: Vegas - just sixty miles to the south-east.
Those astronauts weren't children, and they weren't shrinking violets. The clerks and
secretaries for the Mars control centre were babes recruited from Las Vegas casinos,
which added to the general appeal of the place.


Executive office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington DC 20500. April
20, 1997.
Mr John E Proctor, Director-in-Charge, National Security Issues, General Accounting Office.

Dear Mr Proctor:
In response to your recent query of April 2, 1997.
The office of Science and Technology policy reviewed its records concerning the "Nevada Incident."
OSTP has no direct knowledge of what occured in Nevada and no records, except for the information I
received from the Air Force. I look forward to receiving the GAO report.
Sincerely, Joseph V Ververk, Director


At cross fork, Nevada, I found that hooker.
And through her I found a guy called Tad Jones.
Tad Jones claimed to hae been a minor worker, in the early 1970's, on a covert
government nuclear rocket program, This program continued after the shut-down of the
public-domain NERVA program, following Nixon's (supposed) decision not to go to
Mars.
Jones, and other workers, were bribed and threatened to keep them quiet about their
work on the program. Jones lost his job in 1972, I gather for personal reasons. Now, more
than two decades later, radiation injuries were killing him.
The thing of it is, Tad Jones told me he once met a man who told him he had been to
Mars.
He was called Elliot Becker, and at the time he was an Air Force colonel, and he made
the mistake of getting too drunk one night.
Under false pretences, which I won't go into here, I got to meet Elliott Becker himself.
He is now a senior Air Force officer. He is aged around 60, and he suffers from
premature-aging symptoms; atrophied muscles, osteporosis.