cb@hlwpc.UUCP (Carl Blesch) (10/24/84)
The following is excerpted (without permission, as usual) from the October 22 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology (a McGraw Hill magazine). **************************************************************** NASA Souvenir Spills Navy Satellite Secrets Johnson Space Center - The tourist gift shop in the NASA Johnson Space Center cafeteria is selling souvenir postal covers for one dollar that provide accurate details and drawings of Project Whitecloud, a secret U.S. Navy military space program. Naval Research Laboratory officials said the ocean surveillance satellite program is so secret they are not supposed to use the Project Whitecloud name over the telephone. Several Project Whitecloud spacecraft have been launched to provide an ocean surveillance network to monitor Soviet surface ship and submarine movements. The postal covers show an accurate drawing of the Martin Marietta Whitecloud satellite . . . Beside the spacecraft drawing, the postal cover carries the words "Project Whitecloud" in boldface script . . . The Project Whitecloud postal covers are prominently displayed in a gift shop display case with many other postal covers commemorating less sensitive U. S. space missions. *******************************************************************