MOL discussion

[Blackstar]

Dunno where I saw it or even if I saw it. I'm reading so much now that I forget what I've read. Here's something, from December 1966:

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/CIA%20EOE/SC-2017-00012_C05104508.pdf

I've included two pages that show the security level of things and what they thought MOL was good for.

[libra]

And Bud Wheelon probably let Program A / Air Force dig their own grave with MOL, with a certain delectation... before Din Land, he was the "CIA side" most feared man.

I interviewed Wheelon a couple of times and he flat out said to me that he wasn't impressed with anything the Air Force had done with space reconnaissance. Dunno if I recorded that comment. Wheelon had a reputation for being arrogant. But I don't know if he was wrong.

GAMBIT wasn't too bad no ?    But otherwise... SAMOS and MOL were no successes, indeed...

[LittleBird]

Dunno where I saw it or even if I saw it. I'm reading so much now that I forget what I've read. Here's something, from December 1966:

https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/CIA%20EOE/SC-2017-00012_C05104508.pdf

I've included two pages that show the security level of things and what they thought MOL was good for.

Thanks. I was confusing "Special Access Required" here, with "Special Handling" (as per the slides I was excerpting, and as occasionally stamped on other docs). It's S.A.R. not S.H. that applied to the Ssatellite Data System and DSP at some points in those programmes histories. It seems to have been more restrictive than secret but less so than BYEMAN/TK etc.  I thus don't have any idea about  what S.H. meant .

[LittleBird]

Re my misplaced certainty, having just read the 1970 Berger history in its 2015 form:

2. Focusing of that research further to create the primary mission. This would seem to have happened by May 1965, see attached from McMillan to Greer, "Direction of MOL Program Resulting from Presentations and Discussions from May
17-19, 1965", document #92 in the 2015 release.

So it was about 3 years from first authorisation of MOL  in 1962 to this.

This is consistent with my overall impression (without deliberately going through the documents systematically). It seemed to me from a number of different documents that I encountered long before the program declassification in 2015 that they were evaluating a bunch of different missions. Reconnaissance was kind of the big pole in the tent, but they were discussing other stuff too. I have a 1964 document that even provides a listing of all the experiments under consideration and it has a footnote mentioning that photo reconnaissance was also one of them. (From memory, without digging up that document, the interesting thing I remember was that neither SIGINT nor radar were treated like they were super secret, they were discussed more than photo-reconnaissance.)

There was also the corroborating fact that there were a bunch of MOL documents from 1964 and then everything dried up by 1965, implying that the security got much tighter at that point and for some reason--most likely the transition from research to an "operational" program.

That transition point I think is a key thing to understand, because I have long wondered about opposition within NRO at that time. Were there people who thought that this was a bad idea? Did they worry that getting hitched to a manned spaceflight program was going to restrict them and slow things down? Did the "unmanned MOL" get imposed on the program by outside advisors, or did it bubble up from within SAFSP (the NRO's Los Angeles office) from people who thought that they could do the mission without astronauts?

 

and re your well-justified uncertainty about MOL's origin story

I am not convinced that what was released by the NRO on MOL provides the full story about its origins. I have--somewhere--a ton of memos dating from the first year of the MOL program. They include regular (weekly?) progress reports. They were declassified in the 1990s and I obtained them around 2001 or so. I don't remember the details, but I think I visited the Air Force Historical Research Agency's library with a NASA historian and we looked at all their declassified material on space and came across that MOL stuff and copied the whole lot (pumping a million quarters into their photocopier). But we didn't go through it carefully afterwards, just skimmed it.

All the material was at most only at the secret level and had been downgraded. But it seemed to present the story that MOL had indeed started out as a more generic program that did not include reconnaissance from the start. When the NRO released all their MOL stuff in 2015 (which did NOT include this early material), it implied that reconnaissance had been part of MOL from the start.

I'm just not sure. I think that it's possible that MOL was rather amorphous for at least a good part of 1964 and the reconnaissance mission did not get formally included in it until maybe late that year. And I think that's an important subject worth tracking down.
 

It seems that the 2015 document release does in fact tell us rather more than I'd ever realised. While it's true that the single history "book" i.e. Berger doesn't really go before 1962, and describes a programme where reconnaissance doesn't become the prime focus until 64 and doesn't become the operational mission until 65, there is a short history document included as #426 in the 2015 release (attached) that does go further back and adds to the picture. It's from Aerospace in August 67 and describes their work from 1960. Not sure I can summarise it quickly right now, but it suggests that the 63-64 period was a temporary loss of focus in an effort that was slowly ramping up but was arguably recon-centred from the start, from their perspective.  And it started before the NRO existed.

[Blackstar]

GAMBIT wasn't too bad no ?    But otherwise... SAMOS and MOL were no successes, indeed...

I think that from the CIA's perspective, GAMBIT was not very useful. I can only speculate why. High resolution reconnaissance could be used to inform what was spotted on the search imagery, but it may not have provided definitive technological intelligence on its own. For example, a high-res image could allow an analyst to measure the size of a missile and then estimate how much fuel it carried. But that would have big error bars. However, if they could intercept the telemetry from the missile during a test, that would provide much more accurate information on performance.

But I'm really speculating here. There are reports on the value of high-res imagery, but they remain classified.

[LittleBird]

Further to my note about the intriguing role of Aerospace Corp in MOL during the pre NRO (60 to late 61) and early NRO (61 to 63) eras:

It seems that the 2015 document release does in fact tell us rather more than I'd ever realised. While it's true that the single history "book" i.e. Berger doesn't really go before 1962, and describes a programme where reconnaissance doesn't become the prime focus until 64 and doesn't become the operational mission until 65, there is a short history document included as #426 in the 2015 release (attached) that does go further back and adds to the picture. It's from Aerospace in August 67 and describes their work from 1960. Not sure I can summarise it quickly right now, but it suggests that the 63-64 period was a temporary loss of focus in an effort that was slowly ramping up but was arguably recon-centred from the start, from their perspective.  And it started before the NRO existed.

apparently they did a history article about MOL in the Summer 2004 issue of their magazine Crosslink. Paulo Ulivi posted about it at the time on the FPSPACE board, at which time the link was  http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/summer2004/02.html

This is now a dead link, and  from the comments in FPSPACE  at the time the article may not really have gone into the history pre Dynasoar cancellation in 1963 but it might be worth revisiting.

[leovinus]

Further to my note about the intriguing role of Aerospace Corp in MOL during the pre NRO (60 to late 61) and early NRO (61 to 63) eras:

It seems that the 2015 document release does in fact tell us rather more than I'd ever realised. While it's true that the single history "book" i.e. Berger doesn't really go before 1962, and describes a programme where reconnaissance doesn't become the prime focus until 64 and doesn't become the operational mission until 65, there is a short history document included as #426 in the 2015 release (attached) that does go further back and adds to the picture. It's from Aerospace in August 67 and describes their work from 1960. Not sure I can summarise it quickly right now, but it suggests that the 63-64 period was a temporary loss of focus in an effort that was slowly ramping up but was arguably recon-centred from the start, from their perspective.  And it started before the NRO existed.

apparently they did a history article about MOL in the Summer 2004 issue of their magazine Crosslink. Paulo Ulivi posted about it at the time on the FPSPACE board, at which time the link was  http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/summer2004/02.html

This is now a dead link, and  from the comments in FPSPACE  at the time the article may not really have gone into the history pre Dynasoar cancellation in 1963 but it might be worth revisiting.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070305205226/http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/summer2004/02.html

[libra]

I would like to ask a question. MOL / KH-10 "codename" of course was DORIAN. How was that picked ? The official story (AFAIK) was that a computer picked codenames at random.

But there is also a rumour that the said codenames were picked by spooks, and had "inside jokes". GAMBIT, for example, was called GAMBIT because back in 1962 it was a huge technological... gambit.

As such I was wondering if DORIAN could be related to this famous novel ?
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray

Whatif it was an "inside joke" related to mirrors ? and narcissism, and voyeurism ? Remember the spysats were cynically called "Key holes", for all too obvious reasons (it always baffles me, such blatant cynicism).

 And Oscar Wilde was the living incarnation of cynicism.

https://freebooksummary.com/the-picture-of-dorian-gray-use-of-mirrors-23185

[Blackstar]

I would like to ask a question. MOL / KH-10 "codename" of course was DORIAN. How was that picked ? The official story (AFAIK) was that a computer picked codenames at random.

But there is also a rumour that the said codenames were picked by spooks, and had "inside jokes". GAMBIT, for example, was called GAMBIT because back in 1962 it was a huge technological... gambit.

I don't know where DORIAN came from. However, the names were not picked by a computer. CORONA was named after the Smith Corona typewriter they were using to type up the original work plan. (There's an alternative story that it was named after a cigar, but I don't accept that one.) STRAWMAN was named that because the satellite configuration was considered the basic design, and other missions/designs could be adapted from that one. A lot of the AFTRACK and P-11 satellites got their names from their designers, like LONG JOHN (the designer was a tall guy named John). Some were even inside jokes. STEP-13 was named after the fact that there were 13 radar signals that the CIA had detected but could not identify, and the satellite was supposed to do that. KENNEN was named after the old English word (also German) meaning "to know."

The one relevant story I heard from Dick Truly was that the secretary for the general who ran MOL in Los Angeles was named Dorian. The system was not named after her, but Truly said that every time he heard the general call for his secretary, Truly stiffened up because they were told never to use that word.

[leovinus]

I would like to ask a question. MOL / KH-10 "codename" of course was DORIAN. How was that picked ? The official story (AFAIK) was that a computer picked codenames at random.

But there is also a rumour that the said codenames were picked by spooks, and had "inside jokes". GAMBIT, for example, was called GAMBIT because back in 1962 it was a huge technological... gambit.

[snip] KENNEN was named after the old English word (also German) meaning "to know." [snip]

Fascinating piece of info. Thank you. To this day, same in Dutch actually, as they are all in the same language family via Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Old English, Old German etc

While this tells us is that someone knew European language families, this makes me wonder why they would choose an Old English name (instead of e.g. a typewriter name) ? Do you have more info on the "why" by any chance? Just because they could? An obscure reference to what the system was doing and they did not want to use Latin? And who was the project manager or engineer who would have known about Old English?

Reminds me of the Vandenberg name of the Space Force base in California. Obvious Dutch roots "van den berg" but changed on immigration supposedly.

PS: With respect to DORIAN, am always thinking of Dorian fruit in south east Asia.

[edzieba]

PS: With respect to DORIAN, am always thinking of Dorian fruit in south east Asia.

That would be the MOL's more pungent cousin, DURIAN.

[Blackstar]

It seems that the 2015 document release does in fact tell us rather more than I'd ever realised. While it's true that the single history "book" i.e. Berger doesn't really go before 1962, and describes a programme where reconnaissance doesn't become the prime focus until 64 and doesn't become the operational mission until 65, there is a short history document included as #426 in the 2015 release (attached) that does go further back and adds to the picture. It's from Aerospace in August 67 and describes their work from 1960. Not sure I can summarise it quickly right now, but it suggests that the 63-64 period was a temporary loss of focus in an effort that was slowly ramping up but was arguably recon-centred from the start, from their perspective.  And it started before the NRO existed.

That short history document is really pretty good as a concise overview of the issues they faced and how they changed over time. For instance, Aerospace doing space station studies from 1960-1963 and identifying reconnaissance as the most promising mission.

"It soon became clear that field-of-view limitations, precise image-motion-compensation requirements, and across-the-format (geometric) smears associated with optical systems designed to achieve very high resolution [deleted, but probably said "6-12 inches"] prented technological limitations which could be circumvented by using man to perform acquisition, target centering and tracking functions."

Late 1963, Washington says do an experimental system first instead of an operational system. There's a good overall discussion of this, and it is reminiscent of what happened with Dyna-Soar. If you're spending all that money, you want something of value, not just an experimental system.

Then they added the ability to operate MOL unmanned. "Aerospace personnel therefore initiated a complete review of all aspects of the photographic reconnaissance operation to determine if there were primary mission functions other than acquisition and tracking, [which were] now automatable, that the man could perform which would result in a significant effectiveness advantage over the unmanned approach. Questions of increased total take due to man's performance of weather avoidance and target verification functions were subjected to rigorous statistical analyses, and while they could improve the mission effectiveness, the improvement was disappointingly low. The basic field-of-view limitation, it was then realized, had implications other than just a severe navigation and pointing requirement." It limits you to only looking at a single target instead of a bunch of them.


I've written about all this before in a bunch of TSR articles. Simply put, they wanted the astronauts to do a bunch of things in 1964 and by 1966, many of those things could be done automatically. So the question became what could the astronauts do that an automatic system could not do? And the answer was very little, and those things were not really valuable.

[Blackstar]

On the naming issue I forgot to mention URSALA, RAQUEL and FARRAH. It's obvious where those names came from. And as I noted in one of my articles, there was a proposal for a Direct Readout URUSALA, which was abbreviated as DRACULA. But the general nixed that name. Too bad, because DRACULA would have been one of the best satellite names ever.

[Proponent]

It's durian fruit.

[leovinus]

It's durian fruit.

Oops, my bad You are correct. Sorry for the red herring. Back to the scheduled MOL discussion.

[LittleBird]

It seems that the 2015 document release does in fact tell us rather more than I'd ever realised. While it's true that the single history "book" i.e. Berger doesn't really go before 1962, and describes a programme where reconnaissance doesn't become the prime focus until 64 and doesn't become the operational mission until 65, there is a short history document included as #426 in the 2015 release (attached) that does go further back and adds to the picture. It's from Aerospace in August 67 and describes their work from 1960. Not sure I can summarise it quickly right now, but it suggests that the 63-64 period was a temporary loss of focus in an effort that was slowly ramping up but was arguably recon-centred from the start, from their perspective.  And it started before the NRO existed.

That short history document is really pretty good as a concise overview of the issues they faced and how they changed over time. For instance, Aerospace doing space station studies from 1960-1963 and identifying reconnaissance as the most promising mission.


<snip>

Glad you liked it. To me it seems to raise a number of fairly obvious questions

1. Who was it written for in 67 and why ?

2. Why is the pre 63 history ignored in Berger ?

3. Who was the sponsor(s) of Aerospace's work between its creation in 1960 and the creation of the NRO in 61 ?

4. What happened between 61 and the formal authorisation in 62 ? Was NRO involved as yet ?

And then what happened between 62 and the end of Dynasoar in 63 ?

[LittleBird]

I would like to ask a question. MOL / KH-10 "codename" of course was DORIAN. How was that picked ? The official story (AFAIK) was that a computer picked codenames at random.

But there is also a rumour that the said codenames were picked by spooks, and had "inside jokes". GAMBIT, for example, was called GAMBIT because back in 1962 it was a huge technological... gambit.

I don't know where DORIAN came from. However, the names were not picked by a computer. CORONA was named after the Smith Corona typewriter they were using to type up the original work plan. (There's an alternative story that it was named after a cigar, but I don't accept that one.) STRAWMAN was named that because the satellite configuration was considered the basic design, and other missions/designs could be adapted from that one. A lot of the AFTRACK and P-11 satellites got their names from their designers, like LONG JOHN (the designer was a tall guy named John). Some were even inside jokes. STEP-13 was named after the fact that there were 13 radar signals that the CIA had detected but could not identify, and the satellite was supposed to do that. KENNEN was named after the old English word (also German) meaning "to know."

The one relevant story I heard from Dick Truly was that the secretary for the general who ran MOL in Los Angeles was named Dorian. The system was not named after her, but Truly said that every time he heard the general call for his secretary, Truly stiffened up because they were told never to use that word.

I remember that when I first took an interest in this stuff there was a belief that names were random, and yet I have to say that almost every one I know of seems to have at least one backstory, and some have several-I get the feeling the intel community is fond of puns/double meanings etc, perhaps unsurprsingly.

Was interested to come across this reminiscence from Flax about why he had FULCRUM changed to HEXAGON (it's from the attached CSNR journal article), whole isssue is at https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/history/csnr/articles/docs/gh%20journal_web.pdf

[Blackstar]

With regards to FULCRUM/HEXAGON, there was a logic to changing the name. There was a FULCRUM program that was producing hardware. When Itek dropped out, that hardware was no longer going to be built. So the new hardware, being developed by Perkin-Elmer, logically could use a new name. It seems like something similar happened with the change from ZAMAN to KENNEN--ZAMAN was the general technology development program, but when they decided on a satellite design, they changed it to KENNEN.

It seems to me that pretty much every one of the names that we know about has a story behind it and was not simply random. We don't know a lot of the stories, but somebody thought up the name rather than picking it off a list, and sometimes there was some meaning to the name as well.

As an example, the QUILL radar satellite got its name from "the Quill List" at West Point. If a cadet screwed up and got in trouble, they were put on the list. So being "on Quill" was considered a bad thing. It seems (not totally clear) that the person who picked the name was implying that QUILL was not a desirable program to be assigned to. But in reality, it turned out to be a small, focused project where the people involved could stand out and be recognized. So QUILL turned out to be a good assignment, not a bad one.

[libra]

Fulcrum later was the Mig-29 so we nearly got a FULCRUM spying a FULCRUM...

[Jim]

3. Who was the sponsor(s) of Aerospace's work between its creation in 1960 and the creation of the NRO in 61 ?

The USAF has been Aerospace's sponsor since its inception, for both BMD/SSD/SAMSO/SD/SSD/SMC and SAFSP.