> << evmick, i travelled on business to a place near amarillo (pantex) where they
>
> EvMick wrote: No Kidding? I know where that is...In fact I had... an
> uncle who was a security guard there for many years. He said ...when asked
> what was done out there...that they "made the cups for the flying saucers".
no kidding. they used to say they were developing lightweight windshield wipers for submarines, but the secrecy rules have loosened considerably. a scientific american article from a few years ago demonstrated the cold war has ended: they showed a photograph of a commie nuclear reentry body. turns out you can pick off a helllll of a lot of information about the system from just an external view. im still surprised they showed it. in fact, they had a couple of guys standing there with it, so you could even pick off a length scale on it, (assuming they didnt use tiny commies.) theirs was bigger than i expected. showed the compound cone angle and everything. wouldnt be surprised if some comrades are still in siberia over that. {8^D
the article mentioned pantex and the daunting job they have of taking nukes out of service in response to the signing of the start 2 agreement in jan 93. a am still amazed by that chapter of history: because there were no guns and swords and uniforms scattered on the ground (as the song goes), no dancing round and round, but with the stroke of the pen, over half of the world's nuclear destuction potential was taken off line. the newspapers mentioned it in one paragraph on the bottom of page 19.
glad to hear all is well with you evmick! {8-] spike