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Astronomers Revel In Former NSA Site 270

Posted by Hemos from the more-then-a-little-disturbing- dept.
westfirst writes "Welded carpets, strange light fixtures, odd graffiti, and a happy face painted on a radio antenna. All of these details and more X-Files grade mysteries are reported by the Baltimore Sun They're all buried deep in the North Carolina woods where a bunch of radio astronomers have inherited an old surveillance site abandoned by the NSA. Now, how can I get that carpet in my house?"
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Astronomers Revel In Former NSA Site More

Astronomers Revel In Former NSA Site

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  • By far the best explination... I was somewhat referring to strong signals, but the analogy is well spoken.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau
  • ...gyrating triangles, and a door not big enough to fit most humans.

    The triangles are made from some material that i'm unaware of...probably canvas, but anyways they move when you push one because the room is pressurized to keep the radome more stable the door is smaller than normal to keep from having huge pressure changes.

  • Yup. Sweeping rapidly would just give a quick listen to any signals, like spinning an AM radio dial just lets you hear a burst from each station (to get the same effect you'd actually have to leave your AM radio on one station and rotate a directional antenna around so you hear half a word from Chicago, then half a word from New York, then half a word from Washington D.C....).

    And for radio astronomy you'd also get the fun of compensating for Doppler effects from the advancing/receding edges of the dish and the Earth's movement combined with the movement of the dish. Ick.

    On the other hand, maybe when they're not doing astronomy they could fire up the small dish and do astronomical radar sweeps of the area near Earth. I wonder if they could pick up near-miss rocks that the optical astronomers are missing, such as that 50-foot chunk over London last month.

  • But are they Autobots or Decepticons? ;)

    Since deception is a large part of the NSA's game, they're OBVIOUSLY Decepticons. I know, it's a forehead smacker.

    ...
  • It's amazing what Peral Harbor can do to the American psyche. We vowed never again to be taken by surprise

    Assuming you believe "we" were taken by surprise in the first place.

  • yup (Score:1)

    by twitter ( 104583 )
    hey, does that mean the rest of us (the vast majority of the world) *should* worry about the CIA ? ;-)

    yup, worry worry worry.

    So should US, but the friendly services of other countries bother me much more. British MI, did plenty of dirty work for the US in the US durring WWII. After jailing their own dissent, they turned their attention on US isolationists. Nudge nudge, wink wink, said FDR. Having someone to blame can be worse than having someone to do things for you.

    Ohhh, creepy thought. The song of the day in MiniLove, "you only hurt the ones you love."

  • Heheh. Have you heard those radio commercial for the Commercial Fisherman's Association or something like that?

    "North Carolina: First in Freedom, First in Flight, now... First in Fish!"

    Gimme a break.. that's what *I* want my state to be known for. First in Fish.

    I like "First in large mysterious government complexes deep in the Great Smokey Mountains" better...

  • Foo (Score:2)

    by Wonko42 ( 29194 )
    Oh, blow it out your poophole.

    Wanna know how to solve the poverty problem? Feed the homeless to the hungry.

    --

  • With the proper computer equipment, they might be able scan large chunks of sky quickly, due to the speed of the dishes. Plus, they'd be a perfect reference check for the SETI folk, due to the speed at which they can test a signal and localize it.

    It's not quite that easy. The sorts of signals we deal with in astronomy are really quite faint. To get good signal-to-noise, you generally have to point at one spot on the sky for a good while - minutes to hours, usually. Hence the desire for the dishes to track exactly at the rotation rate of the Earth, but in the opposite direction, thereby enabling them to stare in one spot while the Earth turns under them. Yes, with faster slew you could glance at a large area of the sky quite rapidly, but you wouldn't get any usable data that way.

  • Re:Four foot door? (Score:5)

    by The Silicon Sorceror ( 40289 ) <jbonham@utm.utoronto.ca> on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:52AM (#527758)
    Is anyone else more than a little disturbed by the "four foot door" on the "golf ball building" described in the article?

    Not really, no.

    You've got this large, relatively futuristic building with gyrating triangles, and a door not big enough to fit most humans.

    I think "most humans" would have no trouble ducking down a little to enter this building.

    Perfect Dark grey theory, anyone?

    HAHAHA no.
    A plausible theory is that this ball serves the exact same purpose as the most of the special decorations on the entire site, which is to reduce interference, in this case to the Big Dish inside. Like the article says, the triangles of varying size can help to reduce interference caused by repeated patterns.

    But I see your line of thinking! Maybe the door isn't four feet high because they didn't want to disrupt the damping triangles too much. Maybe it's four feet high because the NSA holds parties for extraterrestrials on top of a giant satellite dish. And they have these parties at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade too, because there are big golf balls there too, according to the article. Or maybe they're too stupid to operate this perfectly normal satellite dish by themselves, and they have to get aliens to do it for them! Yeah, that sounds about right.

    Wait, this is Slashdot. Carry on.

  • Sat photos Found (Score:5)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @12:19PM (#527759) Journal
    Yup, they're on Terraserver. Information on the PARI [pari.edu] site mentions they are NW of Brevard, NC. The map on the Tours page has a barely-legible "To NC 215". NC 215 is west of Brevard, and has an S-curve 2-3rds of the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Look for "Glassmine Mountain", south of "Cook Mountain". South of the S-curve, looking above the streams (the article says PARI is in a natural bowl, thus probably some streams nearby) on the USGS topological map one sees several circles marked "TOWERS". One does not put TV broadcast in a depression. Zoom in and the road pattern matches that of the map on the PARI site. Zoom in to the area where the buildings are near the road to the gate, and to the left is a large white circle. That white circle is one of the dishes, and the picture shows the shadow is way off to the side of the circle -- showing that the circle is suspended up in the air. I don't know if this link [microsoft.com] is a temporary search result or if it's a permanent coordinate link. "212 KM NE of Atlanta GA" the label says.
  • More information about what used to go on in there... some history...

    Rosman Research Station Rosman, NC

    The Rosman Research Station is located in the Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina's Smoky Mountains, near Balsam Grove, NC, off Route 215 approximately 11 kilometers north of Route 64. The station, which closed in 1994, was operated by approximately 250 NSA, Bendix Field Engineering and TRW employees.

    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began operations at the Rosman Spaceflight Tracking Station in 1963, and ceased activities there in January 1981. During NASA's tenure the station supported a number of space projects, including the Apollo and Apollo-Soyuz missions. The station at Rosman was turned over to the General Services Administration by NASA on 1 February 1981. The facility was converted by the Department of Defense for use as a Communications Research Station, a process which was completed in early July 1981. Initially there were approximately 35 contract personnel living in the area, but when the project became operational in July, this number increased to approximately 75 employees. The NSA role at Rosman apparently began almost immediately thereafter. By 1985 this number was reported to have grown to 250 employees, with annual payroll at $5 million, an average of $20,000 a year [The Asheville Citizen 20 June 1985]. For FY85 NSA requested $500,000 for construction of an electric substation to provide additional electric transformer capacity that is required to support station operations. It is difficult to ascertain the total number of satellite receiving antenna at the facility. These at least include two very large dishes, approximately 27.5 feet in diameter (the size of the biggest dish left by NASA), and a smaller 6.2 meter radome.

    The Rosman Station was used to intercept telephone and other communications traffic carried by commercial and other communications satellites in geostationary orbit over the Western hemisphere. Potential targets of interest could include Latin American military, diplomatic and commercial traffic as well as domestic US traffic and drug traffickers in the Caribbean.

  • That golf ball is definetely odd:

    Details on the Mickey Mouse golf ball [pari.edu]

    An overview picture of the compound. [pari.edu] I wonder if there is a reason for the trees planted neatly in a row?
  • Most AFBs I've been on have them. A few were set up agains a hill (Offutt comes to mind) that greatly reduces the areas where it can point. Basically, its to protect the dish from the weather.
  • The Sunny Point MOTSU just outside Southport, NC is supposedly the largest military ammunition / munitions depot on the East Coast. I'm sure that's a high priority enemy target.. and if it gets hit, the enemy gets bonus damange because the CP&L Brunswick Nuclear Plant sit's right beside it. Munition depot goes *BOOM*, Nuclear Power Plant go "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" big-time.

    Man, am I ever glad I moved out of Brunswick County.
  • Sounds like a techy version of MTV's The Real World.

    "A group of 8 astronomers, stuck in a home together, for 3 months. Watch what happens when personalities clash, computers crash, and pocket protectors disappear."
  • Having been in the Air Force I can tell you quite certainly that it's a requirement of the START treaties. We had to get rid of a B-1 bomber (an old test model). The treaty required us to chop it up into pieces the size of small cars and leave it lying on the ramp so that Soviet satellites could snap a picture of it.

  • Cat Light (Score:3)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:24AM (#527775) Journal
    I want to know if a cat makes sparks when it touches the carpet after sliding down the curtains.
  • Now if only I could inherit something useful that the government doesn't need.... Like that Harrier jet that I couldn't buy with Pepsi points (those welchers!)

    Is it possible that they've given this place to radio astronomers because they can do the least damage with it? Imagine a satellite set-up this intense in the hands of dedicated SETI guys.
  • Oh, it's much worse than that at Hunter's Point, San Francisco. The Navy just this week announced it's plans to completely clean up the radioactive waste at the site. Nobody had ever heard the first thing about there being radioactive waste there before.

    Full story here [sfgate.com]

  • Many hardware dev labs and manufacturing sites have ESD flooring - the trick is, you need to wear ESD compatible footwear (such as the ones I have on now)... This keeps the floor at AC ground, and via the shoes, you keep even with the floor. Since all of the machines are tied to the same ground as the floor as well as the worksurfaces (tables, benches, whatever), everyone and everything should be at almost the same potential.

    ESD shoes make your feet sweat more than most regualar shoes so you conduct better to them, and have conductive insides and soles. Works well, and you end up with a lot less part mysteriously failing...
    --
  • I bet they are all Tesla Coils disguised as Transformers ;)
  • search google "helemano army" I have no pictures.. the 1/4 mile to smoke a cigarette is at kunia tunnels. Looks like $330,000 was spent through 1996 cleaning up helemano.
  • SETI nothing. How 'bout Gamma Ray bursts? (they can get data from the Gamma Ray observatories, and zero in quickly to examine the radio signature)
  • >I wonder if there is a reason for the trees planted neatly in a row?

    Yeah, looks exactly like a 9-hole par-3 course to me (albeit without greens or sandtraps). Now wondering if it was just camo to try fooling the russians into thinking it was just a golf course, or did the NSA guys just like to keep their game up? :-)
  • ``Yeah, and if it hadn't been for a quirk in timing, the whole thing would have been plowed under by the forrest (sic) service.''

    Nah. It'd be burned to the ground during one of their ``controlled'' burns.
    --

  • It shows what you can do with no budget limitations. This is just sound engineering for a SIGINT facility. Things like fully steerable 2 axis antennae are because the NSA was in the SIGINT business, scarfing communications signals from wherever so they had to be able to pick out any satellite moving in any direction and track it.
  • Wow! Great post!

    For those who are wondering what PCBs are, here's an EPA site [epa.gov] about 'em. They're also an important part of Neal Stephenson's novel Zodiac [amazon.com].

    This behavior doesn't appear to be unusual; recently in San Francisco, where the Navy has an old shipyard that's filled with random toxic waste, an underground fire burned for a month without public notice. See the SF Cronicle article [ttp] here.

  • Re:Welded carpet? (Score:3)

    by Pope Slackman ( 13727 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @11:09AM (#527810) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Sounds like TEMPEST caliber stuff...
    I'm pretty sure static can be kept to a minimum with far less drastic measures.

    However, it doesn't really surprise me considering who the former tenants were.

    --K
  • A Faraday cage is only useful for keeping interference out. Shielding actually has to block the emission of fields, and is completely different. If it were possible to use a Faraday cage to do shielding, they would just to that to their conference rooms and computers, rather than using all the white noise to foil TEMPEST devices et al.

    However, having the carpet grounded would in fact reduce, all though not eliminate the possibility of static electicity jumping. That's why I'm not sure the purpose really is to help static electricity. Consider the following two scenarios:
    1. You walk around on a carpet, stealing electrons from it and giving it a charge of say, +x, and building up a negative charge on yourself of -x. You then touch the carpet, causing all those electrons to leap off you and arc back to the carpet. You could also touch a neutral piece of electronics (charge 0), which would accept half of your electrons (give or take) and fry itself.

    2. You walk around on a grounded carpet, stealing electrons from it and building a charge on yourself. However, since it's grounded there is an unlimited number to steal. Furthermore, since the carpet isn't building up a huge negative charge, it has no problem giving up more electrons (say -2x). Thus, you could conceivably build up a *bigger* charge than before. This would result in more of a shock when transferring the charge back to a neutral piece of equipment.

    Am I missing something here? Unless you're also wearing a conducting strap connected to your body and the bottoms of your feet, there's no benefit. In that case, you stay neutral because any electrons you steal are immediately returned to ground. Are the electronics that sensitive that the worker's can't just ground themselves when they're working on them?

    Walt

  • Building 2 Helimano (Score:5)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @11:11AM (#527815) Homepage Journal
    On the Island of Oahu in Hawaii There is the most amazing network of tunnels and buildings. They were built during WWII. Some are still in use as Army Military Itelligence and Navy Submarine Comms sites. The only thing I know about them are the guys can't smoke in the tunnels and have to walk a quarter of a mile to have a cigarette. Building two helamano I rediscovered and explored myself. I was out with some friends shooting of model rockets at what was then training area 4 on helemano. We discovered a manhole in the middle of a grassy field. Curious, we opened it to discover the most stale fetid air I have ever experienced. Even standing on the over the hole I was almost overcome by what I belive was methane. Now, We had all heard rumors of tunnels all over the island and made the assumption that this must be one of them. Not to be thwarted by bad air from what would probly be our only chance to explore we went to get our scuba gear. Here is what we found:

    A huge communications complex. complete with Kitchen, Basketball court, Tons of Ancient ceramic and bakelite 66 blocks (telephone punch down blocks), A huge generator room and 8 Transformers the size of 55 gallon drums.

    Rotted Open

    Sitting in a lake of PCB's

    Needless to say we did not explore the tunnel that had been bricked over that was 15 feet wide and 20 foot tall. Later we discovered plans to Bldg 2. That tunnel went all the way to Schofield Barracks.

    Big enough to drive a Semi through.

    We called the EPA. They took plastic barrels that bolt together down the hole and presumably put alll the pcb's in them. The barrels never came out. Once assembled and filled they were left in place for the next impromptu archeologist. The man hole was welded shut.

    There is now an entire community built over the site. Training area 4 is now entirely military housing. No Superfund. No Press.

    Just a manhole welded shut in the middle of a schoolyard

  • Yes, as a temporary member (eventually, I will free all my electrons too and cease to be a member) of the Electron Freedom League, I have to concur. This anti-static bias is clearly a plot to deny electrons the freedom they deserve. Static electricity is a very common way for electrons to free themselves from their terrible bondage to protons. Reducing it can only have the effect of extending the bondage and slavery (electrons are the workhorses of all chemical reactions) of most atoms.

    Electrons of the world, unite!

    Brought to you by The Electron Freedom League

  • So I was wondering... (Score:3)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Friday January 05, 2001 @11:23AM (#527817) Homepage Journal
    Why would they need to track satellites with radio dishes that huge? Then I understood. Those dishes could pick up the faint signals from the satellite's computer bus. From those signals you could get all sorts of interesting information about the satellites.

    This is just like reading your computer monitor at a distance from the electromagnetic signals given off.
  • They might also be perfect for viewing Gamma-Ray bursters. The thing is, you need to turn to face bursters as soon as possible as they die away quickly. IANA Astronomer, but these dishes may be very useful.

    You'd just need to get the message from the initial detection to the dishes quickly. I guess all that fibre'd help as well.
  • First off you should know that Hawaii, in general, is a VERY weird place. Ask anyone here about the "Night Marchers". More than likely you'll get the full story, AND how to handle when you encounter them.

    Secondly, every island is a little more wierd than the next. Kahoolawe used to be a Navy Air Bombing site. Today you can take tours of the special beauty of the island. Not limited to the *live* bombs laying on the ground, as well as *marked* landmine fields.

    Green Harvest (local government agency dedicated to eradicating marijuana) dropped what initially looks like little orange balls all over the Big island (You guys call it the isle of Hawaii, we call it Big island). Turns out that when the balls impact something solid, they release a gas that will supposedly kill *only* Marijuana, turns out that it's actually an Agent Orange Derivative, that was being *tested*. Hundreds got sick and sued, Green Harvest's funding is in jeapordy as a result.

    On Kauai we have the PMRF (Pacific Missile Range Facility). The PMRF is the *entire* US west coast defense system, I'll give you three guesses to figure out what kind of missile(s) protects the entire west coast of America.

    Hawaii is a very fuc*ed up place. Hearing that about Oahu does not suprise me at all.

    Surfing is religion

    you are silly

  • I actually believe the article was referring to the Forest Service bulldozing the site, but I may be mistaken.
  • The main purpose of radomes is to make it more difficult for us to know where they're pointing their dishes. I can't offhand think of any non-spook projects that use them, and I guess that's the reason.
    --
  • Here's a shot [microsoft.com] of the area from the air, courtesy of the US Geological Survey.

    The squiggly gray line running north-south through the center of the image is NC Highway 215. The splotch at center-left, with features that look like terraces at this scale, is your destination: the former Rosman Research Station. Mapquest [mapquest.com] identifies the east-west road running toward the station as Macedonia Church Road, and the last turn into the station as Neil Armstrong Road.

    So here are complete directions:

    From Asheville, take I-26 east; or, fly to the Asheville Airport.

    From either I-26 or the airport, turn right onto NC Highway 280, toward Brevard. If you came from I-26, NC 280 will pass the airport.

    NC 280 ends just inside the Brevard city limits, near a shopping center with a Wal-Mart and a Pizza Hut. Go straight through the light. You are now westbound on US Highway 64.

    Follow US 64 through Brevard. An alternate route is to turn right onto Caldwell Street near the Brevard Motor Lodge; it rejoins US 64 at its other end.

    Past Brevard, US 64 passes a Conoco station and then goes over a mountain. Stay on US 64 for about a half mile past the mountain, until you reach a right turn onto NC Highway 215.

    Now here's where my recall is rather fuzzy; Mapquest [mapquest.com] to the rescue. After about five miles on NC 215 (drive carefully!) turn left onto Macedonia Church Road, and then onto Neil Armstrong Road.

    You're there.
    --
    Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
    Delenda est Windoze

  • If they are in need of funding, they should think about giving tours. It sure sounds like something I'd take a side trip to visit. Anyone else?


    Viv
    -----------
    I Use Napster. I use DeCSS. I buy over $1000 a year in CD/DVDs.

  • Welded carpet? (Score:5)

    by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:28AM (#527852)
    Every inch of floor in more than four buildings was covered with two-by-two-foot squares of bleak brown carpet. When the astronomers tried to replace it, they discovered it was welded with tiny metal fibers to the floor. The result, they eventually realized, is that the rugs prevent the buildings from conducting static electricity.

    Somewhere, a government-contract carpet layer is reading this and having some nasty flashbacks to that job.
  • We weren't taken by suprise by Pearl Harbor.

    We sacrificed Pearl Harbor to prevent the Japanese from finding out we had cracked their codes.

    DUH!

    Haven't you watched the History channel?

  • Sweeping possible... (Score:3)

    by GoNINzo ( 32266 ) <GoNINzo.yahoo@com> on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:29AM (#527856) Journal
    One part really perked me up: Both of the 85-foot dishes swing on two axes, an extravagance the astronomers suspect allowed the agency to swing the face around swiftly to catch up with satellites orbiting Earth. The astronomers need the dishes to move no faster than the speed of Earth itself.

    With the proper computer equipment, they might be able scan large chunks of sky quickly, due to the speed of the dishes. Plus, they'd be a perfect reference check for the SETI folk, due to the speed at which they can test a signal and localize it. They could check areas around signals to make sure it's not a mistake and such. I'm sure these can be used for great science... Makes you wonder what other modern equipment the NSA has.

    But I have to say the riveted carpeting... wow. In our current data center, we have carpeting on a raised floor, but I'm not sure it's static free. I wonder if that will ever make it into the civilian market...

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • The only thing I know about them are the guys can't smoke in the tunnels and have to walk a quarter of a mile to have a cigarette

    standing on the over the hole I was almost overcome by what I belive was methane

    Heh... I think I'd walk the quarter mile for the cigarette, too.

  • Re:The past (Score:5)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @11:45AM (#527866)
    > I still don't admittedly know much about them and if I did odds are I wouldn't be allowed to tell anybody.
    REUTERS January 6, 2001

    Authorities are still investigating the sudden disappearence of thousands of computer geeks worldwide yesterday. It appears that the common thread linking them is that they all read the geek news site Slashdot on Friday afternoon. An anonymous source at MI5 speculates that they learned something that they were not supposed to know, and are now being debriefed en masse at a top secret spy station disguised as an observatory.

    --
  • The Bunker [thebunker.net] is an ex-RAF Radar Tracking Station, designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike. It has been decomissioned and bought by a private company to serve as a "Britain's ultimate safe house" for hosting and colocation of servers. I wonder if the Exodus data centers have airtight blast doors?

    ----

  • The past (Score:3)

    by PhiznTRG ( 261350 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:30AM (#527870) Homepage
    The fact that this stuff was just left there most likely means it was obsolete. Sometimes I sit and wonder what is really being used our goverment (spy equipment, techonology, etc.) What we do know about is astounding. Anyone know anything more indepth about that "golf ball" thing?

    The part that scares me is this: the NSA has jurisdiction inside the USA, unlike the CIA which does not. I do not think most /.'s would be comfortable with the NSA in thier backyard.

  • The result, they eventually realized, is that the rugs prevent the buildings from conducting static electricity.

    Perhaps this is to stop any EMP attacks such as that mentioned on Slashdot last week?

  • While we can all see that this is quite overkill for astronomers this is cool. Finally our government doing something smart. But for all the sonspiracy guys out there,not sure how many but one guy said something like give it to the group with the least danger, there was no danger. The NSA stripped it of everything classified I am sure and it was the ever so secretive Forestry service that gave it to them. Last time I checked the Forest service could care less about all that security. As for the astronomers they got to save a lot of money on building sat dishes and buildings. They also got one hell of a wired compound. Now to just figure out how to tour it cause that wouldbe cool.
  • Four foot -wide- door, perhaps? Would make a lot more sense...

  • We have tours running out of one of our Prime Minister's bomb shelters - the place is huge! The Diefenbunker in Carp is a riot.

    Right now the government is trying to sell it - one party interested in it was a Bike Gang, and another party interested in it is a group who wants to grow the Government sanction marijuana. Hmm... Bikers, marijuana - same group? But I digress...

    Seriously, a tour would be cool - I'd pay money to see inside the giant "golf ball". Other people pay money to see other tourist traps. And the neat thing about this one is that it might be out of cell phone operation range! (I hate the buggers - especially people who bring them on vacation.)

  • 3. Replace stools and chairs with seats from any car I've ever owned.
  • Or if your dish is near a college campus, to keep drunk students from throwing beer cans into it.
  • What Powers and several others in the group find remarkable, though, is not just the expansive network of buildings and security, but the extraordinary cost of all they items they have found - items the agency discarded.
    I'm Sure they had better stuff All ready for them at the new site so they through their old junk away to make room for the new.
  • your reply is completly asine...i didn't say take all the monies going to the NSA (or national security) and use it for education (or public schools.)

    i did say that if they recouped their investment of materials at the site (say auctioned them off) and then donated that revenue stream to education (like grants for college freshmen,) we'd be better off.

    whaddya think - WPI gets no federal funding?

    please - troll elsewhere.

  • Re:Sweeping possible... (Score:3)

    by burris ( 122191 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:34AM (#527894)
    I don't think the special carpet is just to make it static free. It sounds much more like TEMPEST style emanation protection. They want to keep the signals inside the building so they cannot be detected outside by enemies or their own equipment.

    Burris

  • Both of the 85-foot dishes swing on two axes...

    Where did you see that in the article?

    Some USAF optical telescopes used for tracking have redundant three-axis mounts. These are used for tracking satellite and ICBM launches. The idea is to set the two outer axes to align with the trajectory so that the trajectory-following is done with the innermost, and fastest, axis of the mount.

    It's also common to have mounts that can go up through the zenith and down the other side, so you don't have to do a fast 180 on the vertical axis during tracking.

    None of this is surprising; if you want to track low-orbit targets, it's what you have to do.

  • Just in case any of the astronomers are reading...

    Need money? How about using some of that fiber and building space for outsourced data centers? How about renting time on the golf ball satellite to private companies? Surely someone could find some use for it. And turn the paper shredding building into a community paper recycling center! I'm sure there are dozens of other ways you could branch out for funding...

  • You didn't get pictures? This is the coolest thing I've heard of in a long time. It sounds almost exactly like X files - a lot like the beginning of the movie. I would like to believe you... but... it just sounds a little too perfect? And I think if there was something that secret/dangerous around, they wouldn't just weld shut a manhole. It would be too easy for seriously curious people to get through with a cutting torch.

    Do you have pictures of the welded shut manhole, even? Any evidence? Even pictures of the schoolyard or new subdivision?

    Can any slashdot readers in Hawaii verify that this place exists?

    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
  • Pissing in the wind here, but I know that radio telescopes are EXTREMELY sensitive to electrical fields. So much so that you can't drive a car near it because it causes too much interference. In fact, some radio obseravtories will have old diesal cars that don't have any electronics or heavy electrical spark plugs in them to reduce the interference. I believe that this is the case for these metal fillaments.

    Just to throw out a useless fact, all the light that has been gathered and analyzed by all the radio telescopes in the world _ever_ is not enough energy to power a 100WATT light bulb. These devices are that sensative. Hence the reason for them being in West VA and SC... considering they can observe straight through cloud cover day and night.
  • Considering the expense they put into it and the obsessive secrecy, I'm surprised the NSA didn't demolish the whole site and give it back to the forest service as a tract of newly-bulldozed land.

    I don't doubt that there's nothing meaningful to be learned by spooks from the empty buildings and general layout, but given the NSA's relentless obesssion with secrecy, letting someone know how they do *anything*, from park their cars to carpet their floors, seems like something they wouldn't allow. Leaving it all there like an NSA ghost town-cum-museum seems a little unusual.

    On an unrelated note, why is the Air Force demolishing decomissioned missle silos in North Dakota? Is it a START/SALT requirement, or is the Air Force more relentlessly secretive than the NSA?
  • >I wonder if there is a reason for the trees planted neatly in a row?

    Oddly enough, I was wondering the same thing myself. I started thinking "This is the NSA, so there has to be a pattern!" So I pulled up the TerraServer image [microsoft.com] of the site, and took a long look at them to figure out the pattern and ascertain their purpose.

    My conclusion? They're to anchor the hillside and keep it from sliding down onto the telescopes :-)
  • ...that look just the same, except they're not hidden away -- you can see them from the main road usually, and they REALLY stand out. From what I've read, the UK ones are used for tracking space junk, simple as that! OK, there are probably other uses they don't wanna tell us about, but that's the main use here. Also, we had a previously unknown nuclear command post opened up near us a couple of years ago (pretty out-of-the-way fishing village I live in; this base is about 2 or 3 miles in-land). Cool for a tour, but once you get past the cool entrance tunnel and blast doors it's much like any other building inside...

    http://www.blitzbasic.com/

  • Niftus maximus (Score:3)

    by HoldmyCauls ( 239328 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:40AM (#527916) Journal
    It's like Blair Witch for geeks.
  • TerraServer URL's are permanent.

    Here [microsoft.com] is a better, more complete view. It's closer in and shows the entire base.
  • Is it just me, or does the article have this backwards? Sure, I'm just nit-picking, but it seems that one would install such metal fibers to promote conduction and thus prevent the build-up of static charge. Consider conductive anti-stat floor mats, wrist straps, et cetera, which make this seem not-so unusual (except that it's built into the carpet).

    Oh well, anyway, it's still all pretty cool, and I envy the folks who get to work there (mainly for the nice cabling setup). :)

  • Re:The past (Score:5)

    by grappler ( 14976 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:44AM (#527923) Homepage
    I work at TRW in colorado, and we've got a bunch of them. I still don't admittedly know much about them and if I did odds are I wouldn't be allowed to tell anybody. Here's a picture [fas.org] of them, and an article besides.
  • I would be on my way there right now... Just to ask for a tour. Someone from /. please go and visit this place for us if it is reasonable accessable for you.

    ...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
  • Good conclusion, though I have to wonder about the wisdom of this - it's a pretty easy pattern to locate, and would make a fairly simple target for pattern-recognition based systems, such as those deployed in 70's-era spy satellites...
  • Right... its called a Faraday cage. Emanations check in, but they don't check out.

    I like this line:

    "I've never had someone come here that wasn't blown away."

    ...and neither has the NSA! ba-dum cha!

    But seriously, folks...

  • Re:Metal to *prevent* conduction? (Score:3)

    by tjwhaynes ( 114792 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @09:53AM (#527944)

    Is it just me, or does the article have this backwards? Sure, I'm just nit-picking, but it seems that one would install such metal fibers to promote conduction and thus prevent the build-up of static charge. Consider conductive anti-stat floor mats, wrist straps, et cetera, which make this seem not-so unusual (except that it's built into the carpet).

    No - it's not just you. I think they probably intended to say that the metal filaments helped to prevent a build up of static charge in any location. People get confused because static electricity is a fairly misleading name - really all they mean is that a potential difference builds up in a locality and is only slowly dispersed into the surroundings because of the high conductivity of the environment.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • I'm not so much against the NSA having stations that cost umpteen million to build. I am against them squandering the money but abandoning materials that could have been a) salvaged b) recycled c) sold d) donated.

    Some sense of thriftiness would be appropriate. Selling the fiber optic cable in and of itself could have help offset the national debt. Not by much, but every dollar counts.

  • For god's sakes, what is our government afraid of?

    It's amazing what Peral Harbor can do to the American psyche. We vowed never again to be taken by surprise - that's what these installations are for.
  • The golf ball "thingies" are just raydomes (arraydomes - array of triangles sort of thing) they keep the weather (wind, rain, and what not) from screwing with the antenna...nothing more...nothing less...sure they add that "they'll never know where the antennae is pointing" but who really cares you'd still have to know what is up there.
  • in Brevard for 3+ years. It was something no one talked about much. I knew it was up there somewhere but never found anyone who would talk much about it. Way cool if you ask me.
  • I would definately go. There is one problem however, a lot of the visitor would likely be geeks. Geeks with cell phones, camcorders, PDAs, hacked Talkin-Bass gizmos and whatnot. And then there are the non-geeks who have the same stuff, but don't know how to turn it off. This is exactly what they are trying to avoid by choosing a remote location.

    --

  • Yeah, the "spaceship earth" ride is inside it. And to think I've wound around through the inside of the thing. Who knows what those "animatronics" are actually up to...
  • somebody threw a rave there after the NSA abandoned it, either that or maybe the CIA had an acid test party in it after the fact. :P

    Linux Official 2.4 Kernel fast mirror.... CLICK HERE [209.233.130.20]

  • SCIF- Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
  • This doesn't supprise me at all. The NSA doesn't really care about protecting secrets that you can read about in old publications. None of the technology described sounded like anything my local cable tv company doesn't have. (except for the carpet)

    In fact the NSA has a ton of technology on display at the Museum of Cryptology. I went there last summer and saw a Cray, a big black Thinking Machines doohickey, some finger print scanners and several Enigma machines. All technology you can read about in more than 4 locations so it's no longer secret.

    I'm glad the astronimers got to reap the benefit. It doesn't sound like anything the NSA left behind needed to be kept secret and someone now makes good use of it.

  • Honestly... what's the big deal? (Score:4)

    by Gruneun ( 261463 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:06AM (#527971)
    What is inside that giant geodesic dome that looks like a golf ball?

    Ask Mickey Mouse... he's had that technology for years.

  • More info about the Carolinas... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In addition to having a old NSA base, the Carolinas are know to have old Sherman Tanks just out there in the wilderness. They were used as practice targets for the U.S. Army Air Corp and the U.S. Navy airplanes for WWII. The goal was to strike tanks with airplanes (a.k.a. close air support) but their was a serious problem. Tanks hidden in camo were extremely difficult to be hit because they were hidden so well. In fact, they people in charge of hiding them lost the exact locations of these tanks and thus some of them were never recovered. Imagine what other stuff is out there!!

    Additionally, for those who would believe that the Carolinas is just a rural backwash state, consider this: The United States Armed Forces have a rather large concetration of firepower located in the Carolinas and surrounding area. Seymour Air Force base located in NC, houses the First Strike Eagles (F-15E). Pope Air Force base is also located in NC. The Army's Fort Bragg and the Marine's Camp Lejeune are located in NC. And finally, the Navy's Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity is located in Norfolk, VA (which is near NC). Thus the Carolinas is a fairly important region.
  • here's [pari.edu] the place that got the site.

    click tour for site layout and pics!

    i guess their mission statement puts me more at ease.

  • Ok... so they *abandon* this really cool site full of gizmos, gadgets and overengineering.

    Surely they didn't move to cardboard boxes, or some ol' generic office park.

    If they threw this away.... the scary aspect is _what_did_they_move_into_?

    Guess we'll know in 20 years....

  • was that it was a base for X-Com's UFO defense. It's a shame that the alien containment, the plasma defenses, and the PSI labs were removed, but at least they left the laboratories, the barracks, and the hangars.

    So, where is the undersea X-Com facility? Note to self: never board a ship named "Hyperion".

  • Static Electricity... no, RF shielding (Score:4)

    by Matt_Bennett ( 79107 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:13AM (#527978) Homepage Journal
    While the carpet is conductive, which would dissipate static electricity, the most important reason for this shielding is to make the place as RF tight as possible, which the carpet also helps to do. That place is one huge "SKIFF" (Secure information processing facility). Ok, I'm not exactly sure how to spell the acronym, I just remember it spoken. Hard for RF to get out, but also hard for it to get in.

    They were doing satellite eavesdropping, so they want to eliminate as much interference to their dishes as possible. Location gave them isolation from external sources, they just have to make sure that their own computers and whatnot don't kill the RF quiet that they worked so hard to create.

  • hey, does that mean the rest of us (the vast majority of the world) *should* worry about the CIA ? ;-)

    Mind you my backyard is a small carpark so I'd probably notice if an 85 foot radio satellite dish appeared there one morning...

  • Come, explore scenic North Carolina,
    where we were first in flight, home of RedHat, and large mysterious government complexes deep in the Great Smoky Mountains.

    Surely there's a connection in there....

    Victor in Raleigh

    A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close

  • Four foot door? (Score:3)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:14AM (#527988)
    Is anyone else more than a little disturbed by the "four foot door" on the "golf ball building" described in the article? You've got this large, relatively futuristic building with gyrating triangles, and a door not big enough to fit most humans.

    Perfect Dark grey theory, anyone?

  • Re:are you serious (Score:3)

    by bdavenport ( 78697 ) <spam@sellthekids.com> on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:16AM (#527990) Homepage
    ok ok...after checking out the site of the people who bought it i am a little more at ease...at least their mission statement looks honest, forward thinking, and relevant in it's scope.

    it seemed wasteful, but i guess it would be all worth it is we got one more kid interested in astronomy or one or college student who was able to do their master's thesus while working there.

    less caffine for me...

    link [pari.edu] for you to site - good pics of smiley dish!
  • Yeah, we're right next to there. That picture is basically the view from my building. I know some people that were relocated to the tunnels right underneath those domes once their clearances went through.

  • Re:The past (Score:5)

    by BoneFlower ( 107640 ) <anniethebruce AT gmail DOT com> on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:16AM (#527992) Journal
    Actually, the only agency that has jurisdiction to collect intelligence on US entities(defined as US Citizens or corporations when) is the FBI. NSA, CIA, DOD only can do so in extremely strict circumstances of aiding civilian law enforcement and when it can be all but proven that said US entities are connected in a significant way to the foreign intelligence mission, such as an intelligence op gathering info on Osama Bin Laden leading back to a company in the US that is acting as a front. They then have to stop and request approval from higher authority(I believe to the level just below a cabinet secretary) to proceed, and the work will probably just be handed over to the FBI and local law enforcement anyways. The only other exception is when investigating individuals for security clearance purposes. If the NSA was found to be collecting intelligence on US entities as defined above in a situation not allowed above, or in a situation allowed above without getting the proper approvals, heads would roll.

    Reference Executive Order 12333, Intelligence Oversight.

    LCpl George E. Worroll Jr, United States Marine Corps
  • The mission of the NSA is quite simple:

    To protect the communications of the U.S. Government.

    So with that in mind it is not at all surprising that their juristiction includes the US. Why should we be uncomfortable with that? Are you uncomfortable that the #1 spy agency (the FBI) has juristiction inside the US? I do worry about the ATF guys, but when they can capture people like McVeigh and the World Trade Center bombers I know they are out there to protect me.

    I think a lot of negative press has been given to our intelligence agencies. The CIA looks like dumb assess on our very biased news coverage, the DIA and NSA look like geeks with incredible powers and the FBI is seen as a mad house. However, not everything you read or hear repeated is true. I found out recenty that JEH was NOT a crossdresser. That is a myth that was used to discredit him. He was a bully, but why bother to lie like that? The truth always comes out.

    --Peter

  • Defenses? (Score:5)

    by Nate Fox ( 1271 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:34AM (#527996)
    the first sign that something is out of the ordinary is a line of giant transformers.

    But are they Autobots or Decepticons? ;)

    -----
    If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...

  • This is all standard stuff (Score:5)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:37AM (#527999) Homepage
    I work at a mid-sized IT facility. My project manager walked by, and looked at the front page of the Slashdot article. He saw the welded carpet line, and said "Oh yea. They all have that. It reduces EMF transmission. They also have double walls that emit white noise, and shielded wiring... Its all standard stuff." essentially quoted me 3/4 of the article without reading it.

    Apparently this is more common than we all realize.

  • Re:Cat Light (Score:4)

    by Schnedt Microne ( 264752 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:37AM (#528000) Homepage
    I've for some felt there is a need for more fairness in the electronics industry with regard to static issues.

    We have tons and tons of resources thrown at the 'anti-static' problem. I would propose that all facilities be required to provide an pro-static work area. Two possible arrangements come immediately to mind:

    1. Electronic workbenches with a worksurface composed of cat's fur. The hand tools should all be made of glass.

    2. Electronic workbenches made with a worksurface composed of steel. The hand tools should all be made out of flint.

    Employees who work at either type of facility should be encouraged to wear polyester clothing, and shoes with teflon soles, of course.

    There's been a clear anti-static bias in the industry for far too long, and it's time for that to change.
  • completely off topic, but look again at your signature. come the millenium, in the 12th month the village idiot will come forward to lead... can you say GW Bush? Considering that he wasn't elected in November but instead in December which is a fluke to begin with...
  • Did everyone that worked there wear ESD Wrist straps too.?

    They'd have to, if there were any electronics there they wanted to keep (and the story was correct in it's physics..)

    First, if they wanted to prevent the building from conducting static electricity, they would use an insulator, not a conductor (metal is a conductor)..

    Second, if you did prevent a building from conducting static, then the static electricity would build up in the people (or anything else moving around) and spark whenever you got near something grounded (like an electronic device)..

    If the writer didn't screw things up, I think they got the purpose right, but the physics wrong - if static was an issue, the carpet was there to increase the building's conductivity of static electricity, which would minimize it. (The static would dissipate all the time, instead of building up and zapping something.)

  • It would be great if more of these could be available where there are more ``youngsters''. So many of the telescopes that the general public might have a chance of looking through are found in larger cities where the light pollution has rendered them all but unusable for any serious viewing. Even then, I suppose those might be worth something; you may still find them useful to look at the moon. Which could still be enough to inspire the next generation of astronomers.

    But, hey! What about us ``oldsters''?



    --

  • Also the Second Marine Aircraft Wing is headquartered and most of its forces based at Cherry Point NC, and a bit south in Beaufort SC is MCAS Beaufort SC and MCRD Parris Island SC(god the memories of that place). The Carolinas and Virginia are either the worst place to be or the best depending on your optimism level about nuclear war. Worst, because your chance of survival are about nil, best because your chances of dying in the first strike rather than of radiation sickness, to mobs of looters and bandits, or nuclear winter are absolutely guaranteed. Me, I'd rather be in a well stocked shelter in some deserted area of some mountain range. As far as possible from any point of strategic importance whether controlled by the military or civilians, and well stocked with edible plants and animals for when my supplies inevitably run out. Along with preferably several females and several other males, that way humanity would survive.

    To think... backwoods rednecks are the only segment of society with a decent chance of surviving a nuclear war and its aftermath. Makes you wish more of Jeff Foxworthies stuff applied to you...

  • Re:This is all standard stuff (Score:4)

    by scott1853 ( 194884 ) on Friday January 05, 2001 @10:44AM (#528014)
    A manager said that. We need a "+1 Scary" mod rating in here.

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