The Aurora Aircraft Page

Aurora's Budget?

The Aurora first entered the "black" aircraft world when it showed up on a P-1 or procurment budget, and attached to the phrase "air-breathing reconnaissance." In the February 1985 budget, the Pentagon requested that planes like Lockheed's SR-71 Blackbird and the U-2 appear next to the project code named "Aurora." $80 million were spent on these Black Projects in 1986 and about $2.3 billion by 1987 before disapperaing from sight. The National Aeronautics Space Plane (NASP) is suspected to be a cover for Aurora's big budget. While the term was later said to refer to the B-2 bomber, the Federation of American Scientist's - a private anti-secrecy organization in Washington D.C. concluded that, during the 1980s, the government had spent between ten and fifteen billion dollars on this program.

Ben R. Rich, former CEO of Lockheed, claims that the 'Aurora' was a figment of the imagination 'accidentally' mentioned in the budget one year to gain extra funds for the B-2 project which was in desperate need of money at that time. That is because the DOD deliberately mislead Lockheed as to what was required in the B-2 specifications which lead to Lockheed's failure to win that contract. Is this the truth or just another cover up?

Billions of dollars in taxpayer money is being used on projects like these and we don't even know what they are about. Don't we have the right to know? It is our money being spent. If we don't hear anything from the government about the Aurora now, we most likely will hear something about it in the near future,on the other hand, we may never know. It will just be another one of the many mysteries at Groom Lake.

Possibly related material -- more on air-breathing reconnaissance

1997 Congressional Hearings
Intelligence and Security
[C3I EXCERPTS]
Posture Statement of General Fogleman
5 Mar 97

... At the Combined Air Operations Center in Vicenza, Italy, where we executed the very complex multinational air campaign, there was a real-time fusion of operations and intelligence, as well as real-time retasking capabilities for our intelligence assets. General Mike Ryan, who led the coalition's air operation over Bosnia, was able to watch real-time fused pictures of the air operation through our Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) Situational Awareness System (JSAS). The real-time interplay of our space-based and air-breathing reconnaissance systems could also be seen in the intelligence cell behind his command center. The cycle time to capture, analyze, and act on information had been reduced from weeks to seconds--a major reason for the effectiveness of the air operation in Bosnia. Due to the integration of JSAS into the Global Command and Control System (GCCS), real-time information is immediately available to anyone with access to GCCS.