The Triple F Project?

I received this email yesterday. I accept that the author has or had the connections he claims; he supplied information which I recognized as most likely evidence of his stated employment. Whether the rest of the story he tells is true or not I cannot say.

John

I’m enjoying your posts. I used to work at KSC right after grad school, until [Edited, he left within the last year or so]. I never personally saw anything odd there but I always sort of suspected there was something going on. In college and grad school I used to browse forums discussing the objects seen in shuttle footage. If you really want to open your mind up, check those out if you havben’t.

[Edited to remove corroborating education and employment information.]

I read your post about the midwest fireball, I don’t know how serious you were in suggesting it was man made. Did you know about the “Triple F” project? I heard about it last year from someone on the team that made it. The “Fireworks For Fifty Project” was this quiet and unofficial project a handful of engineers were working on to mark NASA’s fifty years, ’58 – ’08. They were building a nitrogen gas powered launcher that could fire six small baseball sized projectiles from the space shuttle’s cargo bay into the Earth’s atmospheres. They calculated that six shots spread just right would cover most of the continental US. Everybody would get a brilliant light show and it’d make great PR. They got the launcher fabricated and cast some projectiles out of iron. They quietly presented it to some managers to see if they could get it tested and approved for one of the 2008 flights. It initially got some support, and a little science was added to legitimize it. It would now be billed as part of an atmospheric survey, using ground-based radar to monitor the disintegration of the projectile. Some time in 2007 they picked STS-124 to be the mission to carry the Triple F. I remember it because that was the first mission that flew after I got to KSC. The Triple F wouldn’t hit the official NASA birthdate but would hit some date for the drafting of the National Aeronautics and Space Act. But he told me it all fell apart when someone at NASA tried to get it cleared with the USAF. Within a few days the project was scuttled and the launcher and projectiles were said to be destroyed. Supposedly the USAF or NORAD freaked because reading relevant treaties broadly it could be seen as contravened orbital bombardment, even if it was against our own country. They just didn’t want to deal with the international politics involved. I don’t know how true that explanation was, sounded like bullshit to me. Maybe they were just covering their asses and didn’t want to be responsible if it turned into a war of the worlds paranoia-fest. Anyway, this recent display made me think of that project, what if they didn’t really destroy the Triple F? Or maybe they built a new one? I don’t buy most conspiracies, but a big display like this the night before Obama’s speech at KSC seems just too coincidental when you figure they had a device that could do this and the shuttle was up there at the time.

[edited, name removed]

Make of it what you will. Maybe I’m being overly skeptical, but I’m not sure I buy it. I don’t doubt it’s possible, I guess I just want a better “why”.

Finding Meaning in the Midwest Light Show

I believe that meaning is often misread into coincidence.  That said, if my mind worked a slightly different sort of way, I would have easily read quite a lot of significance into the light show I woke up to on the morning news.

On the eve of a space summit where President Obama will try to restore the excitement in America and its aerospace industry about the wonders of space through a shift to a private, commercial space program, and through a shift from a trip from our moon to nearby asteroids, Mars, and Martian moons, the entire midwest gets treated to one of the largest and most exciting light shows seen in modern days.

And it is interesting to note that this occurred at a time when the space shuttle is in orbit and could have easy deployed something that would fall into the atmosphere and create such a light show, all for the cost of a little well timed jetsam.

But, my brain doesn’t work like that.  And that’s a pity.  It’s a very appealing curiosity.

Watch the Amazing Video

John