Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: missile guidance vs. CNC

Jon,

I don't ever want to see a Yuk-7 or a Yuk-10 or any of that stuff ever
again, thank you very much.

The trouble with old, now declassified stuff is they never tell us which
parts are now ok for us to talk about and which aren't.

Jeff

On Thu, 30 Nov 2000 23:44:29 -0600, you wrote:

>
>If you mean due to security concerns, a lot of the old stuff is declassifed.
>I went through the 'museum' at Whiteman AFB, currently the home of the
>B2. It used to be a Minuteman base, and had one launch control center
>on the base property. That is now a museum of sorts, and you can take
>a tour down into the launch center. I wish I had gotten better photographs,
>it was REALLY neat, especially as the tour guide was droning on, I was
>reading the labels on all the computer and communications gear in the
>racks, and telling my kids "Ah, yes, an AN/UYK-7A, that's the computer
>that managed deciphering and downloading the targeting data into the
>missile's computer, and here's the AN/UYQ-xxx that performed the
>deciphering of received teletype messages, here's the AN/Uxx that
>held part of the crypto keys (pretty obvious due to the warning message
>about the unit possibly containing such info) and so on. It was
>real interesting to see all this incredible high-tech (for the time)
>gear, and then see the coffee pots and microwave ovens sandwiched
>into the existing gear. It was REALLY tight in there, nothing like the
>movies. You had to duck to move around, and two people couldn't
>pass each other without great difficulty.
>
>If anyone happens to pass through the Kansas city area, Whiteman
>has a base tour once a month, which included the Oscar-1 launch
>site. It looks like the site may be open on more than just one
>day a month.
>
>I also got to fiddle with a Jupiter (?) missile guidance computer
>some years ago. A huge tapered ring about 7' in diameter, with
>thousands of little circuit boards covered with transistors and
>resistors, and a drum memory toward the middle. There was
>a fuss when some university got one with the inertial platform
>still installed in it!
>
>Jon
>