Page 193 - MY STORY
P. 193
He just burst out laughing. I sent Irv a note the next day to
let him know the threat was equal to 3.876 hot irons
operating at 100% of duty cycle. Never heard back and
kept my job.
BRIEFING A CATCH-22 SECURITY VIOLATION
As a major contractor to the US Air Force in the world of
high energy laser (HEL) countermeasures, we were
frequently required by our USAF program manager to
provide briefings to other US government entities. As
program manager, I usually provided an oversight
briefing, followed by briefings from my team in their
specific areas of expertise. On this day, the US
government agency visitors to be briefed came into our
plant with no indication of their organizations, we were
introduced by first name only, and instructed by security
personnel to not ask what agency they represented. So we
simply figured they were “spooks.” Keep in mind that our
contracted activity was to understand the threat to military
satellites posed by a ground-based high energy laser and
how to harden the hardware against the threat. Also
understand that there are some space “assets” that are
openly identified, and some — that are not. We sort of
figured that our visitors were from a community where
their space assets are not acknowledged to even exist. The
