X-no-Archive:yes

The NRO isn't so secret.  You can visit their web page at
http://www.nro.odci.gov/ :->.

The agency first came to public light about 7 years ago when the aerospace
media was tracking down stories about the replacement for the SR-71
Blackbird.  This follow-on, supposedly code-name Aurora is supposed to be a
hypersonic manned recon aircraft developed under the auspices of the NRO.
 The agency has been around for decades, but was shrouded in secrecy.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, 15 December, 1998 9:57 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Wildly off-topic & long to boot

I have, at last, found definitive proof that the PC will outlast and
outsurvive the Mac. Distressingly, the more somber news is that the PC may
well outlast and outsurvive anyone else named Mac.

Last week, Intel and Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque signed an
agreement
to radiation harden the Pentium processor. While the news release below
emphasizes the space exploration values of a rad-hard Pentium, the primary
reason for doing this is to create computers that can survive nuclear war
and
continue to fight long after anything worth fighting for has long been
destroyed.

Just a couple of notes on the following text: the Air Force Research
Laboratory is the twin of the Army nuclear weapons laboratory that I used
to
work for, and the National Reconnaissance Office is so secret an operation
that congress reasonably well exploded a few years ago when they found out
that NRO was hoarding four billion dollars in unspent funds. They were so
flush that they didn't need to the money, but they weren't about to give it
back either.

<Big Snip>