SPOILER: Hopewell Facility
- For other places called Black Mesa, see Black Mesa
The Black Mesa Research Facility is a fictional facility where most of the events of the computer game Half-Life take place. The facility is built over a decommissioned missile silo in the New Mexico desert. Much of the research undertaken there is deliberately left vague, but it is apparently funded by the United States government and consists of highly classified work involving radiation, extra-dimensional travel, rocketry and weapons development. Two things of some interest happen during the tram ride that opens the game: an announcement states that they are seeking employees with backgrounds in theoretical physics, and an Apache attack helicopter is seen apparently being refueled or equipped.
There is evidence to suggest that a military base or installation is located near Black Mesa, possibly even integrated with the research facility. Consider that the soldiers in Opposing Force were able to storm the facility within minutes of the accident, or the nuclear warhead storage facility seen in Half-Life and Opposing Force. An additional factor is that the facility was once a missile silo complex.
Template:Spoiler The physical range of the facility is, from an in-game perspective, nothing short of massive. It is also apparently self-sufficient, housing its own power generation systems including a hydroelectric dam, multi-storey car parks, nuclear and conventional arsenals, a local electric rail transport network, laboratories housing the latest equipment for every conceivable high-tech scientific discipline including a powerful mass spectrometer, and even its own rocket launch site. It can be inferred that the facility is somewhat old considering that some areas are described by in-game characters as "old" or "abandoned." Most of the facility is apparently destroyed by a nuclear warhead at the end of the expansion pack Half-Life: Opposing Force.
Some of the facilities present in Black Mesa include:
- High Security Materials Storage - a storage area fitted with fire-proof blast doors.
- Hydroelectric Dam - this large dam is responsible for providing electric power for the whole complex.
- Test labs (sector C) - Dr. Freeman's workplace, this facility is fitted with a large test chamber built for analysis purposes, ionization chambers and high speed computers.
- Launch facility - utilizing the decommissioned rail system, this facility was built to house the launching equipment for satellite delivery rockets.
- Blast pit - an old rocket silo was converted into a propulsion test laboratory, with two other silos used to house the power generator and fuel/oxygen transfer facilities. Below the silos is the old, decommissioned rail system.
- Rail system - spreading deep underground is the old Black Mesa rail system, which was decommissioned and mostly abandoned, judging by the state of most facilities. Still, power generators are working, and the trams present, just in case they'd be needed someday.
It is rumoured that the US Military Area 51 research facilities at Nellis Air Force Range in the Nevada desert served as inspiration for the Black Mesa facility.
- This article is about the government facility. For other uses see Area 51 (disambiguation).
Area 51 is a remote tract of land in southern Nevada, owned by the government of the United States, containing an air field apparently used for the secret development and testing of new military aircraft. It has been known as Watertown, Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, The Box, Groom Lake, The Unnamed Facility at Groom Lake, Nevada Proving Ground and The Directorate for Development Plans Area. It is famed as the subject of many UFO conspiracy theories.
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Geography[edit]
Area 51 is a section of land of approximately 60 sq. mi. / 155 km² in Lincoln County, Nevada, USA. It is part of the vast (4687 sq. mi. / 12139 km²) Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR). The area consists largely of the wide Emigrant Valley, framed by the Groom and Papoose mountain ranges (to the North and South respectively) and the Jumbled Hills to the East. Between the two ranges lies Groom Dry Lake (Template:Coor dms), a dry alkali lake bed roughly three miles (5 km) in diameter. A large air base exists on the southwest corner of the lake (Template:Coor dm) with two concrete runways, at least one of which extends onto the lake bed, and two unprepared runways on the lake bed itself.
Area 51 shares a border with the Yucca Flats region of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), the location of many of the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear weapons tests. The Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility is approximately 40 miles (64km) southwest of Groom Lake.
The designation "Area 51" is somewhat contentious, appearing on older maps of the NTS but not newer ones, but the same naming scheme is used for other parts of the Nevada Test Site.
The area is connected to the internal NTS road network, with paved roads leading both to Mercury to the northwest and west to Yucca Flats. Leading northeast from the lake, Groom Lake Road (a wide, well-conditioned dirt road) runs through a pass in the Jumbled Hills. Groom Lake Road was formerly the track leading to mines in the Groom basin, but has been improved since their closure. Its winding course takes it past a security checkpoint, but the restricted area around the base extends further east than this (visitors foolhardy enough to travel west on Groom Lake Road are usually observed first by guards located on the hills surrounding the pass, still several miles from the checkpoint). After leaving the restricted area (marked by numerous warning signs stating that "photography is prohibited" and that "use of deadly force is authorized") Groom Lake Road descends eastward to the floor of the Tikaboo Valley, passing the dirt-road entrances to several small ranches, before joining with Nevada State Route 375, the "Extraterrestrial Highway", south of Rachel.
Operations at Groom Lake[edit]
Groom Lake is not a conventional airbase, and frontline units are not normally deployed there. It appears, rather, to be used during the development, test and training phases for new aircraft. Once those aircraft have been accepted by the USAF, operation of that aircraft is generally shifted to a normal air force base. Groom is reported, however, to be the permanent home for a small number of aircraft of Soviet design (obtained by various means). These are reportedly analyzed and used for training purposes.
Soviet spy satellites obtained photographs of the Groom Lake area during the height of the Cold War, but these support only modest conclusions about the base. They depict a nondescript base, airstrip, hangars, etc., but nothing that supports some of the wilder claims about underground facilities. Later commercial satellite images show the base has grown, but remains superficially unexceptional.
Senior Trend / U-2 program[edit]
Groom Lake was used for bombing and artillery practice during World War II, but was then abandoned until 1955, when it was selected by Lockheed's skunkworks team as the ideal location to test the forthcoming U-2 spy plane. The lakebed made for an ideal strip to operate the troublesome test aircraft from, and the Emigrant Valley's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter protected the secret plane from curious eyes.
Lockheed constructed a makeshift base at Groom, little more than a few shelters and workshops and a small constellation of trailer homes in which to billet its small team. The first U-2 flew at Groom in August 1955, and U-2s under the control of the CIA began overflights of Soviet territory by mid-1956.
During this period, the NTS continued to perform a series of atmospheric nuclear explosions. U-2 operations throughout 1957 were frequently disrupted by the Plumbbob series of atomic tests, which exploded over two dozen devices at the NTS. The Plumbbob-Hood explosion on July 5 scattered fallout across Groom and forced its (temporary) evacuation.
As the U-2's primary mission was to overfly the Soviet Union, it operated largely from airbases near the Soviet border, including Incirlik in Turkey and Peshawar in Pakistan.
Blackbird (OXCART / A-10 / A-11 / A-12 / SR-71) program[edit]
Even before U-2 development was complete, Lockheed began work on its successor, the CIA's OXCART project, a Mach-3 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft later known as the SR-71 Blackbird. The Blackbird's flight characteristics and maintenance requirements forced a massive expansion of facilities and runways at Groom Lake. By the time the first A-12 Blackbird prototype flew at Groom in 1962, the main runway had been lengthened to 8500 ft (2600 m), and the base boasted a complement of over 1000 personnel. It had fueling tanks, a control tower, and a baseball diamond. Security was also greatly enhanced, the small civilian mine in the Groom basin was closed, and the area surrounding the valley was made an exclusive military preserve (where interlopers were subject to "lethal force"). Groom saw the first flight of all major Blackbird variants: A-10, A-11, A-12, RS-71 (renamed SR-71 by USAF Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay and not by a presidential error as popularly believed), the abortive YF-12A strike-fighter variant, and the disastrous D-21 Blackbird-based drone project.
Have Blue / F-117 program[edit]
The first Have Blue prototype stealth fighter (a smaller cousin of the F-117 Nighthawk) first flew at Groom in late 1977. Testing of a series of ultra-secret prototypes continued there until mid-1981, when testing transitioned to the initial production of F-117 stealth fighters. In addition to flight testing, Groom performed radar profiling, F-117 weapons testing, and was the location for training of the first group of frontline USAF F-117 pilots. Subsequently active-service F-117 operations (still highly classified) moved to the nearby Tonopah Test Range and finally to Holloman Air Force Base.
Later operations[edit]
Since the F-117 became operational in 1983, operations at Groom Lake have continued unabated. The base and its associated runway system have been expanded, and the daily flights bringing civilian commuters from Las Vegas continue. Some commentators, after examining recent satellite photos of the base, estimate it to have a live-in complement of over 1000 people, with a similar number commuting from Las Vegas. In 1995 the federal government expanded the exclusionary area around the base to include nearby mountains that had hitherto afforded the only decent overlook of the base. Subsequently, limited views of the area are available only from the summits of several distant mountains, particularly Tikaboo Peak (Template:Coor dms), around 26 miles (42 km) to the east.
Rumored aircraft that have supposedly been tested at Groom include the various classified UAVs, a small stealthy VTOL troop-transport aircraft, a stealthy cruise missile, and the hypothetical Aurora hypersonic spy plane.
Area 51 commuters[edit]
Defense contractor EG&G maintains a private terminal at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. A number of unmarked aircraft operate daily shuttle services from McCarran to sites operated by EG&G in the extensive federally controlled lands in southern Nevada. These aircraft reportedly use JANET radio call signs (e.g., "JANET 6"), said to be an acronym for "Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation" or (perhaps as a joke) "Just Another Non-Existent Terminal". EG&G advertises in the Las Vegas press for experienced airline pilots, saying applicants must be eligible for government security clearance and that successful applicants can expect to always overnight at Las Vegas. These aircraft, painted white with red trim (the livery of now defunct Western Airlines), include Boeing 737s and several smaller executive jets. Their tail numbers are registered to several unexceptional civil aircraft leasing corporations. They are reported to shuttle to Groom, Tonopah Test Range, to other locations in the NAFR and NTS, and reportedly to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Observers counting departures and cars in the private EG&G parking lot at McCarran estimate several thousand people commute on JANET each day.
A bus runs a commuter service along Groom Lake Road, catering to a small number of employees living in several small desert communities beyond the NTS boundary (although it is not clear whether these workers are employed at Groom or at other facilities in the NTS). The bus drives down Groom Lake Road and stops at Crystal Springs, Ash Springs, and Alamo.
The Government's position on Area 51[edit]
The U.S. Government does not explicitly acknowledge the existence of the Groom Lake facility, nor does it deny it. Unlike much of the Nellis range, the area surrounding the lake is permanently off-limits both to civilian and normal military air traffic. The area is protected by radar stations, buried movement sensors, and uninvited guests are met by helicopters and armed guards. Should they accidentally stray into the exclusionary "box" surrounding Groom's airspace, even military pilots training in the NAFR are reportedly grilled extensively by military intelligence agents.
Perimeter security is provided by uniformed private security guards working for EG&G, who patrol in desert camouflage Jeep Cherokee and Hum-Vee vehicles. Although the guards are armed with M16s, no violent encounters with Area 51 observers have been reported; instead the "cammo dudes" generally follow visitors near the perimeter and radio for the Lincoln County sheriff. Modest fines (of around $600) seem to be the norm, although some visitors and journalists report receiving follow-up visits from FBI agents. Some observers have been detained on public land for pointing camera equipment at the base. Surveilance is also conducted using buried motion sensors and by HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters.
The base does not appear on public U.S. government maps; the USGS topological map for the area only shows the long-disused Groom Mine, and the civil aviation chart for Nevada shows a large restricted area, but defines it as part of the Nellis restricted airspace. Similarly the National Atlas page showing federal lands in Nevada does not distinguish between the Groom block and other parts of the Nellis range. Although officially declassified, the original film taken by U.S. Corona spy satellite in the 1960s has been altered prior to declassification; in answer to freedom of information queries, the government responds that these exposures (which map to Groom and the entire NAFR) appear to have been destroyed (Corona image). Terra satellite images (which were publicly available) were removed from webservers (including Microsoft's "Terraserver") in 2004 (Terraserver image), and from the monochrome 1 m resolution USGS datadump made publicly available. NASA Landsat 7 images are still available (these are used in the NASA World Wind program and are displayed by Google Maps). Non-U.S. images, including high-resolution photographs from Russian satellites and the commercial IKONOS system, are also easily available (and abound on the Internet).
In response to environmental and employee lawsuits (including a class-action lawsuit brought by employees of the base for toxic waste exposure), a Presidential Determination is issued annually, exempting the Air Force's Operating Location Near Groom Lake, Nevada from environmental disclosure laws (2000 determination, 2002 determination, 2003 determination). This (albeit tacitly) constitutes the only formal recognition the U.S. Government has ever given that Groom Lake is more than simply another part of the Nellis complex.
Nevada's state government, recognizing the folklore surrounding the base might afford the otherwise neglected area some tourism potential, officially renamed the section of Nevada State Route 375 near Rachel "The Extraterrestrial Highway", and posted fancifully illustrated signs along its length.
Although federal property within the base is exempt from state and local taxes, facilities owned by private contractors are not. One researcher has reported that the base only declares a taxable value of $2 million to the Lincoln County tax assessor, who is unable to enter the area to perform an assessment. Some Lincoln County residents have complained that the base is an unfair burden on the county, providing few local jobs (as most employees appear to live in or near Las Vegas) and imposing an iniquitous burden of land sequestration and law enforcement costs.
UFO and conspiracy theories concerning Area 51[edit]
Its secretive nature and undoubted connection to classified aircraft research, together with reports of unusual phenomena, have led Area 51 to become a centerpiece of modern UFO and conspiracy theory folklore. Some of the unconventional activities claimed to be underway at Area 51 include:
- the storage, examination, and reverse engineering of crashed alien spacecraft (including material supposedly recovered at Roswell), the study of their occupants (living and dead), and the manufacture of aircraft based on alien technology. Bob Lazar claimed to have been involved in such activities.
- meetings or joint undertakings with extraterrestrials.
- the development of exotic energy weapons (for SDI applications or otherwise) or means of weather control.
- activities related to a supposed shadowy world government.
Some claim an extensive underground facility has been constructed at Groom Lake (or nearby Papoose Lake) in which to conduct these activities. Others, however, claim that the most secret work previously done at Groom was quietly moved to Dugway Proving Ground in Utah in the mid 1990s, and that the continued secrecy around Groom is largely an attempt at misdirection.
Area 51 in popular culture[edit]
The base is featured in episodes of the television series The Simpsons, Futurama, The X-Files, Taken, Seven Days, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Kim Possible, Megas XLR (as Area 50), and Stargate SG-1, the movies Groom Lake and Independence Day, and in the computer games Area 51, Deus Ex, Duke Nukem 3D, Tomb Raider III, Perfect Dark, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Twisted Metal 3, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (called Area 69), Destroy All Humans! (called Area 42). Half-Life, which is set mostly in and around the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility, is generally considered to be modeled after Area 51. It also features in several novels by Dale Brown and a series of novels by Robert Doherty which take place after Area 51 scientists make contact with extraterrestrials.
Area 51 has been used in several role-playing games as a plot element. In the game Conspiracy X, it is a safe facility and base of operations for the players' counter-extraterrestrial operations. On the flip side, in the Call of Cthulhu modern day conspiracy supplement Delta Green, the base is the site of a foolish conspiracy's laboratory facilities for studying and intercepting otherworldly beings for study.
Area 51 is the name given to a variety of unrelated products and companies, including a range of computers built by Alienware, the development area for the phpBB forum software, one of the areas of the Geocities web hosting service, and numerous science-fiction bookstores and bulletin boards.
The worlds largest model railway in Hamburg, Germany features a fictional Area 51 model in its America section (with aliens playing basketball with base personnel).
The tiny town of Rachel, Nevada (the nearest settlement to the base) enjoys minor celebrity status as being "the official home of Area 51". Located three hours from Las Vegas by car, Rachel receives a modest number of visitors year-round, and several small businesses offer food and lodging to visitors, together with aerospace and "alien" themed merchandising. The visitor numbers are swelled yearly with aviation enthusiasts hoping to catch a glimpse of the Red Flag exercises. A small museum sells maps, photographs, badges, and other Area 51 material, and a local inn, aptly named "The Little A'le'Inn" proudly displays a time capsule received from the production crew of Independence Day.
External links[edit]
- Area 51 - Altered Dimensions
- Federation of American Scientists Area 51 resources
- Nellis AFB
- Topographic Map of the Emigrant Valley / Groom area
- Area 51 timeline
- Photographs of the "Area 51" base
- Photographs of the "Extraterrestrial Highway"
- Local Website about activities on and around Area 51
- IMDB Reference: Hangar 18, 1980
- Google Maps satellite image
- Photographs of McCarran EG&G terminal and JANET aircraft
- AboveTopSecret on the theory that Dugway is new "new area51"
- Aerial Photos from different decades, overlaid with Google Maps interface
- 1983 Color Map of the Nevada Test Site Showing Numbered Areas
References[edit]
- Rich, Ben; Janos, Leo. (1996) Skunk Works. Little, Brown & Company, ISBN 0316743003
- Darlington, David. (1998) Dreamland Chronicles. Henry Holt & Company, ISBN 0805060405
Template:Cleanup-tone Template:Mergefrom NASA Goddard Space Flight Center`s Wallops Flight Facility, located on Virginia, USA, was established in 1945 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as a center for aeronautic research.
Wallops is now NASA`s principal facility for management and implementation of suborbital research programs. The Wallops Mission 2000 Plan includes the following objectives:
To help achieve NASA`s strategic objectives for scientific and educational excellence through cost efficient integration, launch, and operations of suborbital and small orbital payloads. To enable scientific, educational, and economic advancement by providing the facilities and expertise to enable frequent flight opportunities for a diverse customer base. To serve as a key facility for operational test, integration, and certification of NASA and commercial next-generation, low-cost orbital launch technologies. To pioneer productive and innovative government, industry, and academic partnerships.
The research and responsibilities of Wallops Flight Facility are centered around the philosophy of providing a fast, low cost, highly flexible and safe response to meet the needs of the United States` aerospace technology interests and science research. The 900 full-time Civil Service and contractor NASA Wallops employees act as a team to accomplish our mission in the spirit of this philosophy.
NASA also opens its unique facilities to industry for space and aeronautics research. Wallops expects an increase in commercial launch activity in the very near future.
- external link
The Fast Flux Test Facility is a 400MW nuclear test reactor owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. It is situated in the 400 Area of the Hanford Site, which is located in southeastern Washington State.
History[edit]
The construction of the FFTF was completed in 1978, and the first reaction took place in 1980. From April 1982 to April 1992 it operated as a national research facility to test various aspects of commercial reactor design and operation, especially relating to breeder reactors. The FFTF is not a breeder reactor itself, but rather a sodium cooled Fast neutron reactor, as the name suggests. It is stated on the site dedicated to the FFTF, that it tested "advanced nuclear fuels, materials, components, nuclear power plant operations and maintenance protocols, and reactor safety designs." By 1993, the number of uses to which the reactor could be put was diminishing, so the decision was taken in December of that year to decommission it. Over the next 3 years, the active parts of the facility were gradually halted, fuel rods removed and stored in above-ground dry storage vessels. However, in January 1997, the DOE ordered that the reactor be maintained in a standby condition, pending a decision as to whether to incorporate it into the US Government's tritium production programme, for both medical and fusion research. Since then, due to legal wrangling, decommissioning has been stopped and restarted at intervals. In December 2001, the deactivation was continued, after the DOE found that it was not needed for tritium production. Work was halted in 2002 when court action was begun. As of May 2003, deactivation has continued uninterrupted, and it is currently in a state of cold standby.
External Links[edit]
- John Abbotts, "The long, slow death of the fast flux reactor," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2004.
