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A Very Mobile Gray Butte Shelter

It was my intent to put up my old Bluefire site as is, and not mess with it. Sort of a historical look into things circa the mid-1990s. However after it all went back online, I was contacted by someone with a great deal of knowledge of the RCS facilities out in the Mojave, and he filled me in on a lot of the history I didn’t know of.  Not being sure of the sensitivity of any of that info, I’ll not post it, but there is something that’s sort of public knowledge which I didn’t know about. Well…..public in the sense  that you can see it on Google Earth. That’s pretty public.

Fire up Google Earth and go to:

32.897974°, -106.354731°

What you will find there is the new home of the Gray Butte Mobile Shelter building, as well as their 50′ pylon. When the McDonnell Douglas facility went all drones all the time, these items were relocated to New Mexico and became part of the RATSCAT RCS facility at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Must have been an interesting exercise in shipping.

Here’s what the RATSCAT spot looked like in 1996 to Google Earth. Nuttin’ but dirt and desert:

Future site of the Gray Butte mobile shelter structure at the New Mexico RATSCAT facility. Google Earth image taken October, 1996.

But then starting in 2003, there’s a very nifty and familiar looking shelter (Click on the image to view at a more reasonable size):

Gray Butte mobile shelter structure after installation at RATSCAT. Note Gray Butte 50′ pylon in lower left of January 3, 2003 image.

 Back to the Gray Butte RCS facility page