original rectangular base of 6 by 10 miles (9.7 by 16.1 km) is now part of the so-called "Groom box", a rectangular area measuring 23 by 25 miles (37 by 40 km), of restricted airspace. The area is connected to the internal Nevada Test Site (NTS) road network, with paved roads leading south to Mercury and west to Yucca Flat. Leading northeast from the lake, the wide and well-maintained Groom Lake Road runs through a pass in the Jumbled Hills
Groom Lake is a salt flat in Nevada used for runways and test sites.elevation is approximately 3.7 miles (6.0 km) from north to south and 3 miles (4.8 km)
(In January 2006, space historian Dwayne A. Day published an article in online aerospace magazine The Space Review titled "Astronauts and Area 51: the Skylab Incident". The article was based on a memo written in 1974 to CIA director William Colby by an unknown CIA official. The memo reported that astronauts on board Skylab 4 had, as part of a larger program, inadvertently photographed a location of which the memo said:
There were specific instructions not to do this. <redacted> was the only location which had such an instruction.
Although the name of the location was obscured, the context led Day to believe that the subject was Groom Lake. As Day noted:
[I]n other words, the CIA considered no other spot on Earth to be as sensitive as Groom Lake.)
Groom Lake is a salt flat in Nevada used for runways and test sites.elevation is approximately 3.7 miles (6.0 km) from north to south and 3 miles (4.8 km)
(In January 2006, space historian Dwayne A. Day published an article in online aerospace magazine The Space Review titled "Astronauts and Area 51: the Skylab Incident". The article was based on a memo written in 1974 to CIA director William Colby by an unknown CIA official. The memo reported that astronauts on board Skylab 4 had, as part of a larger program, inadvertently photographed a location of which the memo said:
There were specific instructions not to do this. <redacted> was the only location which had such an instruction.
Although the name of the location was obscured, the context led Day to believe that the subject was Groom Lake. As Day noted:
[I]n other words, the CIA considered no other spot on Earth to be as sensitive as Groom Lake.)