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From the bustling streets of Bombay to the top-secret corridors of America’s defense empire, Noshir Sheriarji Gowadia’s journey was nothing short of extraordinary.
Noshir Sheriarji Gowadia, brilliant Indian-born aerospace engineer, once a key architect of the world’s most lethal stealth bomber, the B-2 Spirit, ultimately committed one of the gravest betrayals in US military history. Decades after his treason, the same B-2s he helped perfect rained bunker-busting fury on Iran’s nuclear sites on June 22.
Now 81, Gowadia sits in a high-security prison in Florence, Colorado, serving a 32-year sentence handed down on January 24, 2011. As a senior propulsion expert at Northrop, he held elite security clearances and was deeply embedded in America’s aerospace programs. He played a pivotal role in developing the B-2’s stealth propulsion system — technology that made the Spirit virtually invisible to radar, infrared tracking, and human eyes.
“The entire geometry came from me,” Gowadia once bragged. Internally, he was code-named “Blueberry Milkshake.” When Northrop secured the B-2 contract in 1981, Gowadia’s innovations became the very soul of the bomber’s ghost-like presence in the skies.
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Born on April 11, 1944, into a Parsi family in Mumbai, Gowadia reportedly achieved the equivalent of a PhD by the age of 15. At 19, he migrated to the US to study aeronautical engineering, becoming a naturalized American on July 25, 1969. Just a year later, he joined Northrop and swiftly climbed the ranks of classified defense development.
After leaving the company, Gowadia launched his own consultancy, NS Gowadia Inc., and advised on covert aircraft for the CIA and nuclear weapons at Los Alamos. But as personal expenses mounted, so did his desperation. Seeking fortune, he turned east — toward China.
Between 2001 and 2003, Gowadia made multiple trips to Beijing, sharing highly sensitive data on stealth propulsion technology. In return, he pocketed $110,000. China soon unveiled cruise missiles featuring undetectable exhaust systems — strikingly similar to the B-2's design. Not long after, US satellites captured images of what appeared to be a B-2 replica drone on a Chinese airbase.
On October 13, 2005, FBI agents arrived at Gowadia’s quiet Hawaiian home. Seeing the cuffs, Gowadia whispered, “No.” The agent momentarily tucked them away — but the end had already begun. Days later, on October 26, he was arrested and charged with transferring national defense secrets to a foreign power.
In a handwritten confession dated October 22, Gowadia admitted: “On reflection what I did was wrong to help the PRC make a cruise missile. What I did was espionage and treason because I shared military secrets with the PRC.”
He was ultimately convicted on 14 counts under the Espionage Act and the Arms Export Control Act. His son, Ashton, maintained that the trial suppressed crucial exculpatory evidence and vowed to appeal the verdict.
