We have friends in high places. 🇺🇸🤝🇯🇵
EA-18G Growlers assigned to the “Black Ravens” of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 135 and a UP-3D Orion of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force @JMSDF_PAO conduct bi-lateral exercises in the Sea of Japan.
VAQ-135 is assigned to Commander, Task Force 70, and is forward-deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet. @US7thFleet, the Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, routinely operates with allies and partners to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific.
@NicoleAuerbach Can you state, if you know, whether Jenner & Block - reportedly retained to conduct an "independent investigation" - was also conducting, or advising the institution about, the "internal" investigation during the past few months? (an internal probe was noted by various sources)
@Johnubacon Go a step further.
How much will this matter harm the search for a new president? With so many uncertainties below the level of relatively simple factual matters (like "receipts"), won't the most qualified candidates impose heavy due diligence requirements on the administration?
Let me be clear: section 373 of NDAA - because it is law - would override safety measures @SecDuffy put in place following the Jan. 29 midair collision, following issuance of our urgent safety recommendations, including ADSB requirements for so-called training missions like check rides. This is an absolute travesty.
.@NTSB Chair @JenniferHomendy: "The NTSB vehemently opposes section 373 of the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA…it does not in any way enhance safety, in fact, it reverses safety changes made after the midair collision..."
25 Years of innovation in orbit 🔧
From free-flying robots to 3D printing and advanced life support, the @Space_Station continues to power technology that keeps crews safe and enables missions farther into space. https://t.co/nSQb513tR1
@Johnubacon Almost always we hear "power imbalance" w/r/t relationships like what took place here. The staff member, yes a person has agency and makes choices, but good heavens the U had better offer strong resources to assist her. Imagine the upheaval. I'm expecting Regents to step up.
A fundamental shift from the current EMU's to the new AxEMU is the ability to employ onboard diagnostics and redundancy. The ability to catch a problem early can not only extend the suit life, but allow repairs to be done in orbit or on the lunar surface without the time and cost of shipping the suit back to Earth, shifting the spacesuit from an expensive consumable to a maintainable asset.
As we departed Alaska heading North with the afterburners blazing, I looked out the window at the barren land and ice. We were directly over the ever-moving North Pole. I could see it very well because of the starlight,’ Colonel Richard Sheffield, SR-71 Blackbird RSO.
In 1969, on the Night Before Christmas, my father Colonel Richard “Butch” Sheffield, SR-71 Blackbird Reconnaissance Systems Officer (RSO), flew a North Pole night mission. To honor Dad’s memory. I am going to share this today on the seventh anniversary of his death.
⭐️Ralph Plaisted was not the only person to make an undisputed trek to the North Pole. It was Richard” Butch” Sheffield and Bob Spencer who in 1969 with a navigation system in the SR 71 that was so accurate that Butch is sure they flew right over the North Pole.⭐️
Late in 1969, shortly after I was crewed with Bob Spencer, we were tasked with flying a night mission to the North Pole. Night missions were very rare in those days because of the St. Martin's crash (summer of 1967), which occurred at night when the navigation system failed. We were one of the most experienced SR crews and we were told that the Russians were doing something with our submarines at night at a station they had built on the ice near the North Pole. We did not have a backup or buddy crew this time.
We launched from Beale at night, flew north to Alaska, and refueled over the central part on a Northern heading. Once we were full of fuel, we lit the afterburners and climbed to about seventy thousand feet heading north to the ice station. The tanker was briefed to continue to fly north in case we lost an engine. There was no place to land and our emergency procedure was to turn around 180 degrees and do a head-on rendezvous with the tanker on one engine.
The thought came to my mind, “This is really risky business,” and if anything goes wrong they will never find us.
We needed to find out what the Russians were doing.
I turned on the Side Looking Radar (SLR), looked at the location, and took the images.
The SLR had great resolution plus the speed of the SR traveling 3000 feet per second caused the antenna to believe it was much longer. THE ANTENNA WAS TEN FEET LONG, BUT MOVING AT 3000 FEET PER SECOND, THE MOVEMENT STREACHED THE ANTENNA AS IT TRANSMITTED, SO IF THE transmission took 1/10 OF A SECOND, THE ANTENNA WAS 300 FEET LONG. THAT IS A VERY LARGE ANTENNA..
I found a few years later that they were building an acoustic sonar station to track US submarines under the ice cape. The station was not manned during the worst part of winter. When it was not manned, the CIA landed a few people by parachute code name was called OPERATION COLDFEET to find out what was going on at the station. They found everything to include code books. They were recovered by being snatched up into a low-flying aircraft A C-130 WITH A BALLON TETHER AND SNATCH HARNESS..
The following day as my family sat around the table having breakfast, I thought to myself, no one would believe where I was last night, the North Pole right before Christmas?
Colonel Richard” Butch” Sheffield
This will be in his book.” Ohio to Supersonic “ published by Helion
Paraphrase by his daughter, Linda Sheffield
@Johnubacon It's significant that the University used the term "irrefutable" with regard to information its senior leadership received on Wednesday. The wording used infers that other information had been known but was equivocal or ambiguous. The U of M lawyers don't shoot from the hip.