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From: nickw@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nick Watkins)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: San Jose area questions related to NASA-Ames/Moffett NAS
Message-ID: <3206@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Aug 90 15:27:41 GMT
References: <1990Aug3.185440.3115@cbnewsh.att.com>
Organization: University of Sussex
Lines: 27

From article <1990Aug3.185440.3115@cbnewsh.att.com>, by mrb1@cbnewsh.att.com (maurice.r.baker):
> 
> 	2.)  I remember some discussion of the "secret" (well, at least
> 		classified) DOD control facility out in this area.  Seems
> 		like people called it the "Big Blue Cube"....was that
> 		the boxy light blue building I could see from 101
> 		on the east side....surrounded by parabolic dish antennas?

Yes, that's it. Official name is the Consolidated Satellite Test Centre
(CSTC). See "The new high ground" by Thomas Karas for reasonable
discussion & a picture (in hardback at least). Reissued with catchpenny
title of "Star Wars" in UK. Controls some non classified satellites
(e.g. CRRES) as well as "black" ones. 

> 		If memory serves me correctly, there was some concern
> 		about it after the October, '89 quake which was right
> 		before a shuttle mission --- and also about easy accessibility
> 		to terrorist attack [in a separate discussion].
See "The Button" by Daniel Ford for early expressions of concern about
vulnerability to attack. Phrase "within bazooka range  of ...[a]... highway"
appears somewhere.

Nick
-- 
Dr. Nick Watkins, Space & Plasma Physics Group, School of Mathematical
& Physical Sciences, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, E.Sussex, BN1 9QH, ENGLAND
JANET: nickw@syma.sussex.ac.uk   BITNET: nickw%syma.sussex.ac.uk@uk.ac