Author Topic: MOL discussion  (Read 366878 times)

Offline simonbp

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #360 on: 10/25/2015 02:41 pm »
Slightly cleaned up versions of the geosync command post from document #794, "General Electric Company Briefing Charts, Advanced MOL Planning; Missions and Systems". Note the use of laser comms!

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #361 on: 10/25/2015 04:09 pm »
Note that the advanced MOL planning document was actually completed after the program had already been canceled.

I've done a preliminary pass through the documents and when you do that you get a sense of how the program evolved. When it started out, the reconnaissance mission was more along the lines of "see what astronauts can do for reconnaissance." It then evolved into an operational mission in clear support of strategic reconnaissance requirements. But the number of qualification, manned, and unmanned flights was always shifting. It was not until around 1968 that they decided to go straight for manned flights with no qualification flights (I cannot remember if they also did away with the unmanned option, I'd have to check my notes). That delayed the program even more. In remarks on Thursday night, Abrahamson said that it immediately added a year onto their schedule (probably because they could not have all the operational equipment ready until later).

A number of things have impressed me from the documents. The document collection is quite comprehensive and covers a lot of material. What really comes through is just how complex MOL was. It was human spaceflight, SIGINT, radar, and high-performance optics, plus a near-real-time option. They seem to have bitten off more than they could chew, and they started eliminating some of those missions. The radar and SIGINT missions were eliminated. But the unmanned mission option in some ways added complexity to the overall program, because they now had to design for two different spacecraft, and consider retaining operability between the two (in other words, the ability to fly either manned or unmanned).


Offline simonbp

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #362 on: 10/25/2015 04:09 pm »
As proven before but confirmed by these documents, no MOL structural hardware was used on Skylab and that may be expanded to include all hardware upon further reading.

I'm kind of surprised they didn't use the MOL airlock; that would have seemed to a logical transplant.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #363 on: 10/25/2015 04:34 pm »
The panel discussion. From left, Abrahamson, Bobko, Crews, NASA official Michael Yarymovych, Truly, Crippen. The two men on the right are from NRO.

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #364 on: 10/25/2015 04:55 pm »
Note that the advanced MOL planning document was actually completed after the program had already been canceled.

Often things are left dangling like this to allow ambiguity and "plausible deniability" adaption. Once you know which way the script's doing to go, then you can articulate and fix for all time.

Quote
I've done a preliminary pass through the documents and when you do that you get a sense of how the program evolved. When it started out, the reconnaissance mission was more along the lines of "see what astronauts can do for reconnaissance." It then evolved into an operational mission in clear support of strategic reconnaissance requirements.

Not the way I read the documents.  Suggest "mission/scope creep" to an always operational program, where too many things might be changing in different related areas (technology, capability, need, means to address).

Quote
A number of things have impressed me from the documents. The document collection is quite comprehensive and covers a lot of material. What really comes through is just how complex MOL was. It was human spaceflight, SIGINT, radar, and high-performance optics, plus a near-real-time option. They seem to have bitten off more than they could chew, and they started eliminating some of those missions. The radar and SIGINT missions were eliminated.

Suggest that early in the program, all of this seemed to be of whole cloth, building upon the same platform with minor variation. But perhaps as the above mentioned creep occured, the cost and execution necessary to close the combined mission exploded on them. Complexity grew too fast. Like with following, overly ambitious programs as well?

Quote
But the unmanned mission option in some ways added complexity to the overall program, because they now had to design for two different spacecraft, and consider retaining operability between the two (in other words, the ability to fly either manned or unmanned).

Agree with this. Suggest once the two programs intersected, the manned program was on a short leash/life. Because the unmanned then need only mature and establish a believable timeline for improvement, with the manned program only serving to act as a budgetary reserve for the unmanned program to consume following cancellation.

Perhaps the better choice for AF was to fly the same hardware as a unmanned, docked with Gemini, much much earlier in the program, as a means of advancing systems check out, intelligence quality and assessment, with the longer term goal operations. However McNamara was skeptical of AF getting returns off of "non operational assets" like this might suggest. Also, the unmanned and manned sides, not to mention NASA, would likely still have fought the turf through not agreeing on scope/mission details, even though the needed experience might have advanced all programs equally for minimal near term investment in actual missions, instead of the bloated studies and erratic overdevelopment that did apparently occur - out too far in front of the headlights.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #365 on: 10/26/2015 04:25 pm »
Note that the document compendium that I mentioned earlier is here:

http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/programs/docs/MOL_Compendium_August_2015.pdf

This is a 36-megabyte file, so be forewarned.

Offline Michael Cassutt

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #366 on: 10/26/2015 06:00 pm »
I think the Ai
So NASA could afford T-38 trainers for its astronauts and the USAF could not, even though the T-38 was the standard advanced trainer at the time?  How many would they have needed? 


I think the Air Force had other priorities. Remember they started buying them in 1961 as a much needed advanced trainer. Add in the needs of training new pilots for Vietnam and I think you have your answer. By the late 1960s Vietnam was chewing up pilots. To give you a personal example, my Grandfather flew in Korea and WWII was asked to reenlist. Sadly the physical flagged something that turned out to be cancer, but for that he would have gone.

T-38 production did not end until 1972, meaning the US Air Force had more demand than T-38s. NASA didn't have similar demands and had the budget to buy them.

Thanks.

The fascinating document dump from NRO on MOL turns up a few pages that address this question, Monthly Status Reports for 10/66, 11/66 and 01/67.  The MOL office originally wanted two F-104s and two T-38s based at Edwards, two T-39s at LAX, and five T-38s at NAS Los Alamitos.

HQ USAF and, based on a handwritten note, NRO Director Flax, thought this excessive or premature.  (At this time there were only seven MOL aerospace research pilots on station in Los Angeles, with five more then at Edwards.)

When finally approved, aircraft support for MOL was two T-38s at Edwards, one T-39 at LAX, and three T-33s eventually to be based at LAX.

Michael Cassutt

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #367 on: 10/27/2015 02:28 am »
When finally approved, aircraft support for MOL was two T-38s at Edwards, one T-39 at LAX, and three T-33s eventually to be based at LAX.


It would not surprise me if the LAX-based planes were already at LAX. Los Angeles Air Force Base didn't/doesn't have a runway. Many major airports, even if they lack an Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard facility, often have a government hangar to support government planes. I would not be surprised if there was an LAAFB hangar at LAX that had a few planes for use by the generals and senior officers. The T-33s might have already been there and were simply given to the astronauts.

I think Truly told me that he thought the T-33s were crappy. Surely going from test pilot school to a slow T-33 must have seemed like a demotion.

Offline Michael Cassutt

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #368 on: 10/28/2015 02:03 pm »
Digging through last week's NRO releases I found this statement regarding MOL astronauts and their possible return to earth in hostile territory:

"MOL astronauts will be provided with no instructions, devices or equipments for purposes of bringing about their personal destruction in the event of incident. Any equipments provided to astronauts for purposes of survival, will undergo careful screening against a standard of practical application, to insure that the purpose of such equipments can logically be defended as not intended to bring about the death or injury of other-individuals, or to induce such individuals to act in a manner contrary to their allegiance."

So, no "suicide pill" for MOL astronauts -- and no "survival pistol".  (Use of plural is sic, btw.)

The statement (and entire policy) originated in the office of Alexander Flax, DNRO, on 28 December 1966, and was reproduced in an official AF policy statement dated January 1967.

http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/321.pdf

Michael Cassutt

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #369 on: 10/30/2015 02:51 am »

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #370 on: 11/01/2015 06:12 pm »
I'll have another MOL article in TSR on Monday. This is not part 2 of my MOL astronauts article (I still need to write that). Instead, this article looks at the program goals, costs, and schedule over its four-year duration. How much was it estimated to cost when it started? What was it estimated to cost when it ended? And how many manned MOL flights were planned at the start and by the cancellation?

Offline Danderman

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #371 on: 11/02/2015 08:20 pm »
I certainly can't find any support for the structures being transferred next door to Skylab, and the photography shows structural components very different from known Skylab hardware. However, those very same photos of hardware beg the question of what happened to them? So far, there is no mention of disposition of partially complete modules in any of the PDFs that I have read.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were absorbed by an unmanned program.

Offline Jim

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #372 on: 11/02/2015 09:40 pm »

I wouldn't be surprised if they were absorbed by an unmanned program.

No again.  There is no need for pressurized volumes  (especially 10' diameter) for unmanned programs.  There is nothing similar on Hexagon and the only other 10' diameter program, KH-11, would be more likely have hardware from it.
« Last Edit: 11/02/2015 09:46 pm by Jim »

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #373 on: 11/03/2015 12:36 am »
Looking at the diagram of the telescope, can I ask a question?

Without numbers, it looks like the folding mirror is a much smaller diameter than the primary (which we know was 72"). Anyone know the size?

Also, f5/f6?
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Offline kevin-rf

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #374 on: 11/03/2015 12:39 am »

I wouldn't be surprised if they were absorbed by an unmanned program.

No again.  There is no need for pressurized volumes  (especially 10' diameter) for unmanned programs.  There is nothing similar on Hexagon and the only other 10' diameter program, KH-11, would be more likely have hardware from it.

Ascension mini series on SciFi? Or would Capricorn One be more of Jim's time period ;)
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Offline the_other_Doug

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #375 on: 11/03/2015 12:42 am »
I certainly can't find any support for the structures being transferred next door to Skylab, and the photography shows structural components very different from known Skylab hardware. However, those very same photos of hardware beg the question of what happened to them? So far, there is no mention of disposition of partially complete modules in any of the PDFs that I have read.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were absorbed by an unmanned program.

Let's be honest, guys -- once the program was canceled, the workshop hardware that was under construction was almost definitely scrapped.  Optics may have been recycled into other surveillance satellites, and installed electronic components and wiring may have been salvaged, but the pressure vessels, structural members, etc., probably went the same way as the LMs for Apollos 19 and 20 that had been started and not completed, i.e., into the scrap bins.

I know that a heck of a lot of the razor blades sold in the U.S. in the late 1940s were made from the recycled steel hulls of scrapped WWII naval destroyers; who knows, if you purchased lawn furniture in the 1970s, maybe it had a bit of the aluminum from the MOL structures in it... ;)
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #376 on: 11/03/2015 12:42 am »
New article is up:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2858/1

Blue suits and red ink
Budget overruns and schedule slips of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program

by Dwayne Day
Monday, November 2, 2015


In the late 1960s, Dr. John McLucas served as undersecretary of the Air Force and wore a dual hat as Director of the super-secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). McLucas had been involved in numerous air and space programs over many years, and he headed the NRO when the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) had run into major funding and schedule problems, resulting in Richard Nixon canceling it in summer 1969. MOL had been a big project officially approved by Lyndon Johnson in 1965. According to his 2006 memoir Reflections of a Technocrat (written with Kenneth J. Alnwick and Lawrence R. Benson), McLucas was not in favor of MOL and did not fight its cancellation. In the mid-1990s, in response to a question, McLucas remarked that his problem with MOL was that “It was always one year and one billion dollars from being ready.”
« Last Edit: 11/03/2015 12:45 pm by Blackstar »

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #377 on: 11/03/2015 01:00 am »
Let's be honest, guys -- once the program was canceled, the workshop hardware that was under construction was almost definitely scrapped.  Optics may have been recycled into other surveillance satellites, and installed electronic components and wiring may have been salvaged, but the pressure vessels, structural members, etc., probably went the same way as the LMs for Apollos 19 and 20 that had been started and not completed, i.e., into the scrap bins.

We do know the 72" primary mirrors where donated to NSF(?) and used for the MMT on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. They where removed in 1998 when a 6.5 meter spin cast mirror was made available by Roger Angel's team at UofA.
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Offline Blackstar

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #378 on: 11/03/2015 01:58 am »
We do know the 72" primary mirrors where donated to NSF(?) and used for the MMT on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. They where removed in 1998 when a 6.5 meter spin cast mirror was made available by Roger Angel's team at UofA.

Last I had heard the mirrors were still in storage at the base of the mountain. I asked somebody to photograph them for me (they're in crates, so not much to see), but they never came through.

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: MOL discussion
« Reply #379 on: 11/03/2015 04:33 am »
New article is up:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2858/1

I don't know what you wrote in this article, but for some reason, I can't get it to open.  I hope you didn't put something still classified!  LOL.

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