IIRC, the heat shield hatch swung inside the Gemini (between the crew seats), and was connected by a narrow tunnel to the main pressurized compartment.
IIRC, the heat shield hatch swung inside the Gemini (between the crew seats), and was connected by a narrow tunnel to the main pressurized compartment.
So how does the tunnel interface with the hatch and account the heatshield. Did the tunnel butt up against the heatshield with a compliant material that could handle the interior air pressure?
You're assuming that the requirement for a Titan IIIM was the long pole in the tent for MOL. I don't think that's the case. MOL was incredibly complex, and had little real justification.
AFAIK, Titan IIIM was a long pole, with flight tests not even started as late as 1969.
It wasn't the Titan IIIM that killed MOL. It was high costs and continued program slips. Yeah, a smaller spacecraft would have required a smaller rocket. But your alternative sounds more complex.
[T]he Russians slavishly copied MOL and executed missions with landing craft featuring hatches in the heat shield, although they never risked a crew landing with this architecture.
A heat-shield hatch sure seems scary, but I wonder whether it's really as risky as it looks.
I would imagine that a redesign of Gemini to allow for transfers through the nose/top would eventually have been cheaper and easier than all these through the heat shield design ideas.
The hatch through the heat shield was the chosen method for the crew to move from the capsule to the lab. This raises a question in my mind. How was the tunnel to the lab connected to the capsule and how did it provide an airtight seal?
I believe that it didn't need to be airtight. The tunnel was merely a passage way to the MOL. The Gemini was depressurized and the floated in their suits through the tunnel to the MOL and sealed and pressurized the MOL..
I believe that it didn't need to be airtight. The tunnel was merely a passage way to the MOL. The Gemini was depressurized and the floated in their suits through the tunnel to the MOL and sealed and pressurized the MOL..No, I don't buy that. The hatch isn't large enough to exit with a sealed suit, under pressure, and with some sort of self contained life support system. Even the small emergency chest packs were too large to mange through the heat shield hatch & tunnel and, if you've seen the spacecraft films footage of the 0G tests of the hatch/tunnel arrangement, getting throught here in a pressurised suit would have been a real problem, if possible at all.
The internal tunnel structure was not the only possibility
I would imagine that a redesign of Gemini to allow for transfers through the nose/top would eventually have been cheaper and easier than all these through the heat shield design ideas.
Huh? No way. Though the nose would be impossible with keeping within a Gemini design. The diameter is less than the tunnel width. Where would the RCS and parachutes go? Add a docking mechanism, rendezvous equipment, 3 axis ACS, translation engines, etc. It would be a whole new spacecraft.
The MOL Gemini just required a hatch and tunnel interface and it had many unnecessary systems removed.
MOL without a Gemini still required a T-IIIM and adding a docking system would add back some weight.
A heat-shield hatch sure seems scary, but I wonder whether it's really as risky as it looks.
Again, the trade on the table is a single redesign of Gemini to allow nose-first docking with a solo launched MOL vs the actual baseline. Biting the bullet on "fixing" Gemini to convert it into a real ferry spacecraft would have been cheaper in the long run, and IMHO saved the program.
Of course, had the USAF done that, we wouldn't have SLC-6 today.
As for a solo-launched MOL requiring development of Titan IIIM, that implies that the difference in capability between Titan IIIM and Titan IIIC was more than the mass of a Gemini.
So, the trade is:
Baseline:
1) redesign Gemini for rear docking, including development of a pressurized section in the rear for a tunnel, docking, rear crew station, heat shield hatch, access hatch in the re-entry capsule between the ejection seats;
2) Develop Titan IIIM to loft Gemini + MOL for initial habitation. Required construction of SLC-6.
or
Alternate:
1) Redesign Gemini for nose docking and crew transfer, requires different shell, but same subsystems as original Gemini. Fly MOL without Gemini for all MOL launches.
2) Fly MOL from existing Titan IIIC launch pads on Titan IIIC launcher.
I suspect that the alternate would have been flying in 1967, at a much lower cost to the government.
Again, the trade on the table is a single redesign of Gemini to allow nose-first docking with a solo launched MOL vs the actual baseline.
Again, the trade on the table is a single redesign of Gemini to allow nose-first docking with a solo launched MOL vs the actual baseline. Biting the bullet on "fixing" Gemini to convert it into a real ferry spacecraft would have been cheaper in the long run, and IMHO saved the program.No, as Jim says, that level of redesign of the Gemini would have cost the same as a completely new vehicle, because that's what you would have needed. The front two subassemblies of the Gemini (the recovery module and the RCS system) filled up the entire volume. If you want to use that volume for a docking system and a passageway, where do the recovery system & RCS go? An expansion of the diameters of the nose means that the outer mould line of the basic capsule has to change to ensure that that the re-entry vehicle aerodynamics remain acceptable. As soon as you do that, you have an entirely new vehicle. Big bucks and even longer schedule.
As soon as you do that, you have an entirely new vehicle. Big bucks and even longer schedule.
Why didn't they just use Apollo?
Why didn't they just use Apollo?
Why didn't they just use Apollo?
West coast Saturn?
This discussion does have me wondering, why was a new pad needed for MOL, why couldn't the Titan III C/D pad have been used. Did it not exist yet? If not, why then wasn't SLC-6 used when the Titan IIIC came to the west coast for the KH-9? Just curious...
Why didn't they just use Apollo?
Why didn't they just use Apollo?
There wasn't a T-IIID pad at the time. MOL and T-IIID would have been flying simultaneously.
There wasn't a T-IIID pad at the time. MOL and T-IIID would have been flying simultaneously.
Was the thought at the time, that two pads where needed to keep the two programs from conflicting and each interfering with the other? Does this mean they had a good handle at how long Titan payloads would spend on the pad back then?
The internal tunnel structure was not the only possibility
here is a progress report on a expandable gemini to mol crew tranfer tunnel.
I does answer the side looking question.
I does answer the side looking question.
Only for this timeframe, it could have changed later in the program. Need all the history.
I agree. There remain serious questions about what the final optical design looked like. The model in the picture labeled "MOL Telescope/Camera" in http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-4 suggests something closer to a Cassegrain design and is more consistent with the UL that the original 1.8 m mirrors for the Multiple Mirror Telescope were KH-10 leftovers.
I agree. There remain serious questions about what the final optical design looked like. The model in the picture labeled "MOL Telescope/Camera" in http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-4 suggests something closer to a Cassegrain design and is more consistent with the UL that the original 1.8 m mirrors for the Multiple Mirror Telescope were KH-10 leftovers.
That isn't an original source
I agree. There remain serious questions about what the final optical design looked like. The model in the picture labeled "MOL Telescope/Camera" in http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-4 suggests something closer to a Cassegrain design and is more consistent with the UL that the original 1.8 m mirrors for the Multiple Mirror Telescope were KH-10 leftovers.
Not really. The optical train depicted in Jim's image is almost identical to KH-8 and -9, with the exception that MOL apparently did not have the big Schmidt corrector plate that its predecessors did.
The primary mirror in the image that Jim posted is not by any stretch an f 1.8 primary. I thought MMT was provided with the mirrors that had already been figured, not blanks.
btw. For some reason I thought the original MMT mirrors where 72" not 70". Is this a metric english thing, or do I need to start taking some ginkgo root?
You guys are amazing ;D
I have placed as many pics of the MOL as we could find here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jjqctsfcyvd6vrs/J-_m8T6z7o (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jjqctsfcyvd6vrs/J-_m8T6z7o)
I'll probably be moving them around and adding and removing, so grab any that you want now if I've got one that you want.
I also posted some thoughts on the side vs. down shooting camera here: http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-5 (http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-5), so you guys can see what kinds of ancillary considerations all of this leads to for a film.
Keep it going, this is great stuff.
I am away from my Spacecraft Films disc, but the hatch was pushed "out" from the heatshield and stored in the tunnel. There was a distinct lip on the hatch that overlapped the heatshield. The storage compartment had some positive latch mechanism that prevented the hatch from floating up.
When I last launched the video, I did not notice how the join was made air tight, perhaps someone else has the video at hand.
The astronauts tested their ability to go through the tunnel both in and out of suits, with film cartridges, and towing or pushing a suited/unsuited incapacatated astronauts.
The model in the picture labeled "MOL Telescope/Camera" in http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-4 suggests something closer to a Cassegrain design and is more consistent with the UL that the original 1.8 m mirrors for the Multiple Mirror Telescope were KH-10 leftovers.
QuoteThe model in the picture labeled "MOL Telescope/Camera" in http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/mol-update-4 suggests something closer to a Cassegrain design and is more consistent with the UL that the original 1.8 m mirrors for the Multiple Mirror Telescope were KH-10 leftovers.
To ask the question before the thread ages too much, is the provenance of the model shown in that picture known? If it traces back to actual program information, that would be somewhat significant. If it was just made to illustrate the UL of a Cassegrain design for KH-10, not so much.
Picture attached for reference.
Having said that, the Russians slavishly copied MOL and executed missions with landing craft featuring hatches in the heat shield, although they never risked a crew landing with this architecture.
DDay,
Great article, great artwork! Kudos on starting to tie up the loose ends.
The QUILL image begs the question you posed a year and a half ago: how would the MOL pilots have brought four buckets worth of film back in one Gemini capsule?
The more you speculate about details like this, the more the whole thing starts to look dubious. Compare MOL to the KH-9, with its MASSIVE film supply and four buckets and you see that MOL just didn't make much sense. Why have a guy selectively taking pictures when you can just photograph everything and bring it all back?
I have a slight recollection that the idea of having the astronauts (and cosmonauts in the corresponding case) act as real-time photointerpreters/ spotters was floated. So, presumably, the film would be returned later for detailed analysis of the Severodvinsk Ship Yard and the astronauts would give warning if the 1st Guards Tank Army suddenly left garrison.
Whatever the idea was, it didn't carry the day.
real time photo interpretation
1-I can see the reasonning behind that "we don't have the KH-11, not yet. Recovery of the KH-8 and KH-9 buckets takes a looong time.
2-Looks like the NRO holy grail was shortening the photo transmission delay by any mean, with the ultimate goal of real-time.
3-Didn't they planned a special C-135 able to process the photos while flying from Hawaii to Washington ?
4-By the way it says a lot about how big the NRO budget was.
I have a slight recollection that the idea of having the astronauts (and cosmonauts in the corresponding case) act as real-time photointerpreters/ spotters was floated. So, presumably, the film would be returned later for detailed analysis of the Severodvinsk Ship Yard and the astronauts would give warning if the 1st Guards Tank Army suddenly left garrison.
Whatever the idea was, it didn't carry the day.
There were two arguments for astronauts:
-real time photo interpretation
-targets of opportunity
Neither was convincing. Lots and lots of effort for very little return.
Not only unconvincing, but having astronauts on an imaging craft actually made things more difficult, at least according to one very senior SAFSP official I talked to. To paraphrase, "too much bouncing around. Even slight, slow movement by crew would ruin the images."
QuoteNot only unconvincing, but having astronauts on an imaging craft actually made things more difficult, at least according to one very senior SAFSP official I talked to. To paraphrase, "too much bouncing around. Even slight, slow movement by crew would ruin the images."
Interesting. In this case, what was the point of flying the Large Format Camera on STS-41G (be it a KH-9 camera or not) ?
I mean that the issue of "bouncing astronauts" certainly did not vanished between 1969 and 1984 ? ???
(just a bit confused)
I think the thing that most impressed me, with Giuseppe's excellent side by side KH-9/MOL images is I never realized how small MOL was. This was not really a big spacious space station. It was a change from a couple of weeks in the front seat of a VW Beetle to having a VW Microbus (with implements of photography)!
I think the thing that most impressed me, with Giuseppe's excellent side by side KH-9/MOL images is I never realized how small MOL was. This was not really a big spacious space station. It was a change from a couple of weeks in the front seat of a VW Beetle to having a VW Microbus (with implements of photography)!
Looking at the image produced by DeepCold.com of the MOL interior, it looks an awful lot like the interior of the SkyLab multiple docking adapter. Based on that guess, I am providing a NASA slide on the MDA to provide some idea of the size of the MOL pressurized section.
Wow, I hadn't appreciated this before. Makes sense that there's design heritage from MOL to MDA. But how much? Is the MDA really just a slightly
modified MOL pressure section - is it even possible that the flight Skylab MDA was built from a left over MOL flight test article? The 'docking adapter' aspect is of course new design.
Sort of cool to think that part of MOL (other that the Nov 66 heat shield test) might have actually flown
Wow, I hadn't appreciated this before. Makes sense that there's design heritage from MOL to MDA. But how much? Is the MDA really just a slightly
modified MOL pressure section - is it even possible that the flight Skylab MDA was built from a left over MOL flight test article? The 'docking adapter' aspect is of course new design.
Sort of cool to think that part of MOL (other that the Nov 66 heat shield test) might have actually flown
No, MDA was built Martin Marietta
Edit
Actually, MSFC built the hull and Martin outfitted it.
July 27-31
Representatives of government and industry participated in a Skylab AM and MDA crew station review at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis. Storage areas, equipment, and crew operations were discussed. Astronauts attending the review conducted walk-throughs of the AM and MDA, major elements of the Skylab cluster that would also include large solar observatory quarters for long stays in space. McDonnell Douglas was developing the AM. The MDA was being built by MSFC; and Martin Marietta, Denver Division, was integrating equipment and experiments.
MSFC News Release 70-146, 28 July 1970; MSFC, "Weekly Activity Report," 6 August 1970; "Weekly Progress and Problem Summary for the Administrator Skylab Program," 7 August 1970, NASA, "Manned Space Flight Weekly Report," 10 August 1970.
My guess is that stuff went from Huntington Beach to MSFC in the middle of the night sometime in late 1969. Stuff like pressure vessels.
According to the following info in Wikipedia there werwe supposed to be 5 manned launches in the MOL Program.
The note at the bottom indicated that the launch sites were VAFB as well as CCAFS.
Anyone know which (if any) of the manned flights were scheduled to be launched from Florida.
Also, were any other crews named besides the two noted below?
Thank you.
1970 December 1 - MOL 1 - First unmanned Gemini-B/Titan 3M qualification flight (Gemini-B flown alone, without an active MOL).
1971 June 1 - MOL 2 - Second unmanned Gemini-B/Titan 3M qualification flight (Gemini-B flown alone, without an active MOL).
1972 February 1 - MOL 3 - A crew of two (James M. Taylor, Albert H. Crews) would have spent thirty days in orbit.
1972 November 1 - MOL 4 - Second manned mission.
1973 August 1 - MOL 5 - Third manned mission.
1974 May 1 - MOL 6 - Fourth manned MOL mission. All Navy crew composed of Richard H. Truly and Robert Crippen.
1975 February 1 - MOL 7 - Fifth manned MOL.
Operational MOLs were to be launched on Titan IIIM rockets from SLC-6 at Vandenberg AFB, California and LC-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
According to the following info in Wikipedia there werwe supposed to be 5 manned launches in the MOL Program.
The note at the bottom indicated that the launch sites were VAFB as well as CCAFS.
Anyone know which (if any) of the manned flights were scheduled to be launched from Florida.
Whatever, four or five flights is not much considering how big an expense MOL was. I do hope more flights were to happen !
Hey, Hexagon only flew 22 times over a 14 year period. Considering how expensive it was, a flight a year is realistic.
Whatever, four or five flights is not much considering how big an expense MOL was. I do hope more flights were to happen !
Four manned flights were budgeted at the time the program was cancelled in June 1969. Had MOL survived and gone into operation there would have been more -- at least, that was the hope.
A heat-shield hatch sure seems scary, but I wonder whether it's really as risky as it looks. The Air Force did perform a successful flight test, after all. Also, IIRC, on an early, unmanned Soyuz flight a plug at the center of the heat shield actually failed. Although the crew cabin lost pressure, the temperature inside stayed within reasonable limits (I think I read about this in a Jim Oberg piece).
DDay,
Great article, great artwork! Kudos on starting to tie up the loose ends.
The QUILL image begs the question you posed a year and a half ago: how would the MOL pilots have brought four buckets worth of film back in one Gemini capsule?
Well, we still don't know the answer. My guess is that they planned on conserving film, only taking pictures of high priority targets. As a result, they would not have taken a lot of pictures, and they would have sent some down in a small capsule and brought the rest with them in the Gemini.
The more you speculate about details like this, the more the whole thing starts to look dubious. Compare MOL to the KH-9, with its MASSIVE film supply and four buckets and you see that MOL just didn't make much sense. Why have a guy selectively taking pictures when you can just photograph everything and bring it all back?
Would all the film have gone in the bucket, or did the crew bring any back in the Gemini?
Folks,
In this month french astronomy ciel et espace (which is pretty serious) there's a story about an amateur stargazer with the name of Mike Clements that wants to build the largest amateur telescope in the world.
(another article on this, much less detailed. If anybody interested I may scan the Ciel&Espace article which is somewhat better)
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=22987812
Acording to Ciel et Espace, in the 80's Mike Clements obtained a 1.80 m mirror from an Itek employee named Vaughn that didn't wanted it to be destroyed (it's a bit more complex than that, but I haven't Ciel et espace on hand while typing)
I'm reminded of Blackstar Space Review article on the Multiple Mirror Telescope, whose six original mirrors aparently come from the MOL program in the late 70's.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1371/1
I'm reminded of Blackstar Space Review article on the Multiple Mirror Telescope, whose six original mirrors aparently come from the MOL program in the late 70's.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1371/1
I'm reminded of Blackstar Space Review article on the Multiple Mirror Telescope, whose six original mirrors aparently come from the MOL program in the late 70's.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1371/1 (http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1371/1)
As Blackstar has pointed out in prior threads, all we know about these MOL blanks is they are believed have been 72" flats when handed over to MMT. They where re-figured. Now what do you use a 72" flat for, and if used as a diagonal, how small is the mirror they are used with?
Ok, I understand your skepticism, and respect it. Those NRO things are still shrouded in mystery... and classification. Are you interested by a scan of the article to try and make an opinion ?Skeptical yes but perhaps Bill was a contact that enabled a transfer. It would be very unusual to go to an individual. There has to be more to the story. Yes I would be interested in the article. Please email.
Is Magdalena Ridge Observatory a light weight blank?This mirror is a 87% light weight fused silica mirror that was completed prior Roger Angle starting the spinning process at U of A. Roger Angle's mirrors are Pyrex.
As in 2.4 left over from something space related, or 2.4m spun up by Dr. Roger Angel?
I assume when you you refer to a checkout cell you are referring to a egg crate construction with with a top and bottom face plate.
He knew that Clements' project was not easy. But the masterpiece was worth it
Here's a scan of the article. I'm quite confident that members with better english skills than myself could translate it. ;)OK now I think I have a better handle on how this mirror likely got where it is. For starters the only Itek employee named Vaughn was a Bill Vaughn who would have been an unlikely suspect. The Vaughn Parson mentioned in the article was never a Itek employee but may have known a former Itek employee who was aware of the mirrors.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i24/Archibaldlecter/ff2edcaa-0258-4b06-8ef7-fd4fb126f1bb.jpg?t=1377933338
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i24/Archibaldlecter/001.jpg?t=1377933798
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i24/Archibaldlecter/003.jpg?t=1377933531
Are photos of Bob Crippen in MOL space suit or in Gemini-B simulator?
Sounds like a MOL mirror has found a home:
http://fox13now.com/2013/11/03/utah-mans-massive-creation-may-be-largest-amateur-telescope-ever-built/
(70" sounds very close to the known 72" mirrors of MOL)
Okay, tinfoil hat MOL question,
All the KH-11 discussions have me wondering:
While we know the KH-10 used a 1.8m mirror, unlike the KH-9/KH/8/KH-7, the design has not been declassified. Why?
More drawings showed up on the wiki page. Looks like declassification has happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-10_Dorian
More drawings showed up on the wiki page. Looks like declassification has happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-10_Dorian
Thanks. Followed the reference link but that didn't give much in way of clue about this declassification.
These diagrams show concepts for future MOL-derived variants, possibly part of a sales pitch to USAF or NRO. They must have been classified simply because they were related to MOL. Maybe they were "easy" to declassify after only 45 years because they were never sensitive to begin with.
Someone has edit'd the Wiki page, they are no longer up. At least what I saw last night is no longer up.
Edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=KH-10_Dorian&action=history
Cached version from wiki that still has all 25 images:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=KH-10_Dorian&oldid=613523157
Wait for my TSR article.
Wait for my TSR article.
Fascinating as usual. About the Gambit 3: indeed I've long asked myself, wasn't MOL role already fitted by the KH-8 ? What value does a bigger ship with astronauts add ?
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2539/1
Fascinating as usual. About the Gambit 3: indeed I've long asked myself, wasn't MOL role already fitted by the KH-8 ? What value does a bigger ship with astronauts add ?
And I am sure they were asking that question at the time.
Part of this was probably schedule driven, meaning that GAMBIT 3 was conceived, developed and operational relatively quickly, while MOL kept plodding along. So it was up and running and making MOL obsolete.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2539/1
I don't know what I found more interesting, the article (which was good) or some of the TSR comments (Which are also good).
Nice article.
Thanks for the article, interesting stuff.
Shame the images got deleted off Wikipedia.
Thanks for the article, interesting stuff.
Shame the images got deleted off Wikipedia.
The images were removed from the KH-10 entry (Wikipedia pages are not galleries), they're still on Wikimedia Commons here (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:KH-10_DORIAN) and here (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory).
Thanks for the article, interesting stuff.
Shame the images got deleted off Wikipedia.
The images were removed from the KH-10 entry (Wikipedia pages are not galleries), they're still on Wikimedia Commons here (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:KH-10_DORIAN) and here (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory).
Thank you for those links.
How were they going to re-supply this station, one of the diagrams shows something described as the manned re-supply, so were they going to just rely on sending supplies up with the Astronauts in the Gemini capsule.
True. But some of the just-released declassified images depict proposed, dare I say fictional, concepts for future multi-MOL long-term stations with resupply vehicles. I'm not referring to the cross-sections of the KH-10 system, but the others. Those fanciful images cannot have been anything more than sales pitches, more wishful thinking than hard engineering.
You're thinking of the documentary "Astrospies." Google it. It might even be online.
Of course, the counter to having somebody pressing the shutter button was just loading up the satellite with a lot of film and taking pictures of everything. Easier to load a thousand pounds of film than 15,000 pounds of astronauts support equipment.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2539/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2539/1
If HEXAGON was 2 feet / 60cm resolution, how to compare that with "softball dropped on a parking lot" resolution quoted for KH-10?
1-Ah, thanks! I did not realize "softball" is a specific kind of ball, chalk it up to cultural difference.
2-Technology is amazing, I wish Russians revealed as much of theirs in museums and documents as USA folks do.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2539/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2539/1
Interesting photos of MOL hardware under construction.
So .... what happened to the hardware?
So .... what happened to the hardware?
1-It's essentially the game of baseball, for wusses.So you've obviously never been hit by a pitch in fast-pitch softball.
I hope I'm not stealing your lines here but didn't you once opine that the MOL hardware formed the basis of the Skylab airlock module? I seem to recall you pointing out the identical 10 foot diameters.
So .... what happened to the hardware?
I hope I'm not stealing your lines here but didn't you once opine that the MOL hardware formed the basis of the Skylab airlock module? I seem to recall you pointing out the identical 10 foot diameters.
If this has been answered elsewhere, I apologize in advance, but I didn't see anything reading through:
1- Where, if present at all, is the film return bucket(s) in the manned version of the MOL? I know it was mentioned that one of the MOL astronauts said there was only one. I don't see it in the documents that were recently released, unless I'm missing something.
2- Did the vehicle have solar arrays? Someone asked early on in this thread and I wasn't sure if anyone had an answer.
3-(I am, BTW, the builder of the [now shown to be wildly inaccurate] downward pointed Cassegrain-type model someone posted to the thread about two years ago.)
Fuel cells were temperamental in the early years, but worked throughout the 2-week Gemini 7 mission with only a brief hiccup near the end. They worked well enough throughout Apollo. I thought they were baselined for MOL, although DDay would remind me that MOL was frequently revised and besides we probably have not seen the definitive MOL documents yet.
Is it odd that the MOL pilots came from the test pilot cadre and not recon pilot cadre?
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1
Thanks for another good article on this fascinating project.
I wonder how much the later MOL designs ended up contributing to KH-11? Perhaps not directly, but with its big mirror, KH-10 seems more similar to the rumoured KH-11 configuration than any of the other film-return systems, so perhaps valuable lessons were learned when working on the KH-10 design (and prototype hardware?). Could this be an additional factor in keeping the details of MOL secret for so long?
Thanks.
The optics would have to suffer launch forces though so if you'll forgive me that is not a reason for vertical integration. And also they would be horizontal or near enough at many points in the launch trajectory.
Is VI needed for similar optic-based birds these days?
Thanks. Can you elaborate?Is VI needed for similar optic-based birds these days?
There are more types of payloads than just optics-based
Thanks. Can you elaborate?Is VI needed for similar optic-based birds these days?
There are more types of payloads than just optics-based
Regardless, I realized upon seeing some drawings which included "launch locks" that considerable realignment was expected in flight before useful imagery commenced. Any guesses how long the in-orbit check-out might have had to last?That would be one new argument for a human in the loop. The fine tuning of optical alignment can be more easily accomplished when a human is in the loop... That said, they managed to do just fine with the KH-7/8/9.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2566/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2566/1
Another great article, thanks.
I suppose the likelihood is even when we finally see a program history for MOL that this area will still be shrouded in relative mystery.
The NRO has posted 42 new documents on their "Frequently Requested Records" page with the title "Manned Orbiting Laboratory/DORIAN illustrations" link. I have only reviewed a few files and they show detailed optical diagrams, test facility photos, antenna diagrams, "typical satellite inspection test layout" diagram, etc. Unfortunately, some items are still redacted including the radar equipment in one possible MOL option. The release date was 10 June 2014. This is the largest amount of released official information that I have seen involving the MOL program.
The NRO has posted 42 new documents on their "Frequently Requested Records" page with the title "Manned Orbiting Laboratory/DORIAN illustrations" link. I have only reviewed a few files and they show detailed optical diagrams, test facility photos, antenna diagrams, "typical satellite inspection test layout" diagram, etc. Unfortunately, some items are still redacted including the radar equipment in one possible MOL option. The release date was 10 June 2014. This is the largest amount of released official information that I have seen involving the MOL program.
I assume you're referring too the ones on this page.
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/DORIAN.html
You are correct. The documents are not date-stamped or organized, but other documents have shown a very small production run for Gemini-B vehicles, no capabilities for such dockings, etc. In the absence of a definitive history or program plan, I consider plans for dockings, resupplies, and synchronous-orbit command posts to be sales pitches with few prospects of implementation.
Does that MOL assembly building in the article still exist and if so, what is it used for now?
There will be a lot of MOL stuff happening in 2015. Trust me.
More than that.
Does that MOL assembly building in the article still exist and if so, what is it used for now?
I wonder, and perhaps it's an unanswerable question at this time, how much of the technology developed for this program made its way into other programs once MOL was cancelled?
There will be a lot of MOL stuff happening in 2015. Trust me.You can't mean the FIA-O mess resulted in them having to dust off MOL hardware and finally use it? Can you? Can you? 8)
There will be a lot of MOL stuff happening in 2015. Trust me.You can't mean the FIA-O mess resulted in them having to dust off MOL hardware and finally use it? Can you? Can you? 8)
There will be a lot of MOL stuff happening in 2015. Trust me.You can't mean the FIA-O mess resulted in them having to dust off MOL hardware and finally use it? Can you? Can you? 8)
I suspect that most of it was used, one way or another (some as components of spysats).
I wonder, and perhaps it's an unanswerable question at this time, how much of the technology developed for this program made its way into other programs once MOL was cancelled?
Well, now that you ask, the fact that the Skylab airlock contained a Gemini hatch may be significant.
{groans from everyone}
There will be a lot of MOL stuff happening in 2015. Trust me.You can't mean the FIA-O mess resulted in them having to dust off MOL hardware and finally use it? Can you? Can you? 8)
I suspect that most of it was used, one way or another (some as components of spysats).
There will be a lot of MOL stuff happening in 2015. Trust me.You can't mean the FIA-O mess resulted in them having to dust off MOL hardware and finally use it? Can you? Can you? 8)
That was other programs vs MOL.
I suspect that most of it was used, one way or another (some as components of spysats).
And that has what to do with my question?Does that MOL assembly building in the article still exist and if so, what is it used for now?There was a building at the old MacDac plant in Huntington Beach used for assembly of MOL that was subsequently used for assembly of DC-X. It was allegedly next door to a building used for assembly of major Skylab systems.
And that has what to do with my question?Does that MOL assembly building in the article still exist and if so, what is it used for now?There was a building at the old MacDac plant in Huntington Beach used for assembly of MOL that was subsequently used for assembly of DC-X. It was allegedly next door to a building used for assembly of major Skylab systems.
The organization I work for is currently moving into a building once occupied by the Army Reserve. That doesn't mean that I am now in the Army. The fact that a building once used for MOL activities is/was next door to a building used for Skylab production doesn't mean that there was any connection between MOL and Skylab.
In mid 1969, MOL was canceled.
Within a month or two, there was a redesign of Skylab.
You missed my point - MOL and Skylab assembly were contemporaneous and next to each other. Saturn SIV-B stages were produced by Douglas Aircraft at Huntington Beach, so the Skylab main structure was also developed there, next to the MOL assembly building.
In mid 1969, MOL was canceled.
Within a month or two, there was a redesign of Skylab.
In mid 1969, MOL was canceled.
Within a month or two, there was a redesign of Skylab.
And to a great extent, the decision to switch from the wet to the dry workshop concept for Skylab was determined when von Braun, and later George Mueller, donned spacesuits, got into Marshall's water immersion facility, and tried to unbolt the proposed hydrogen dome hatch cover through which the Skylab crew was supposed to enter the workshop. (It had to be securely bolted and specially insulated so the tank could serve to hold LH2 during launch.) Neither von Braun nor Mueller could even begin to get the bolts off, highlighting the true difficulties in making the wet workshop concept work.
The decision, again, had nothing to do with the status of MOL or any MOL design considerations. Skylab decision-making and design were completely separate from MOL.
And to a great extent, the decision to switch from the wet to the dry workshop concept for Skylab was determined when von Braun, and later George Mueller, donned spacesuits, got into Marshall's water immersion facility, and tried to unbolt the proposed hydrogen dome hatch cover through which the Skylab crew was supposed to enter the workshop. (It had to be securely bolted and specially insulated so the tank could serve to hold LH2 during launch.) Neither von Braun nor Mueller could even begin to get the bolts off, highlighting the true difficulties in making the wet workshop concept work.
The decision, again, had nothing to do with the status of MOL or any MOL design considerations. Skylab decision-making and design were completely separate from MOL.
Thanks for that bit of trivia, I always wondered what drove the switch. I just assumed it was budget, or lack of budget to execute the full program.
Though to be fair, based on the above, if they tried to push von Braun through the MOL tunnel I am sure the program would have come to a crashing halt much sooner.
I wonder if Backstar's hint actually means some hardware that has been collecting dust since Nixon will end up on display Dayton.
It's mentioned in Homesteading Space, which (according to Amazon) had Garriott, Kerwin, and Bean participating in writing. I'd check myself, but my own copy is half an hour's drive away from where I am now, so I can't exactly run over and look at the cover, or give an exact page number. In any case, if anyone would know, it would surely be the astronauts involved, no?
Got a cite for that? According to the offical history of Skylab VonBraun's only 'comment' after the tests was that there needed to be a few more staps and cable attachments included in the tank design AND nothing regarding "difficulties" in getting into the tank.
Randy
You know, if you scroll back through this thread, you'll see that this whole (dumb) issue has been hashed out here at least once before. It really seems silly to do it here again, in the MOL thread.
I don't know anything about MOL hardware that still survives. That's not what I was indicating. Think in terms of paper and people.
It's mentioned in Homesteading Space, which (according to Amazon) had Garriott, Kerwin, and Bean participating in writing. I'd check myself, but my own copy is half an hour's drive away from where I am now, so I can't exactly run over and look at the cover, or give an exact page number. In any case, if anyone would know, it would surely be the astronauts involved, no?
Got a cite for that? According to the offical history of Skylab VonBraun's only 'comment' after the tests was that there needed to be a few more staps and cable attachments included in the tank design AND nothing regarding "difficulties" in getting into the tank.
Got a cite for that? According to the offical history of Skylab VonBraun's only 'comment' after the tests was that there needed to be a few more staps and cable attachments included in the tank design AND nothing regarding "difficulties" in getting into the tank.
Randy
In mid 1969, MOL was canceled.
Within a month or two, there was a redesign of Skylab.
You're insisting on a connection that didn't exist.
And to a great extent, the decision to switch from the wet to the dry workshop concept for Skylab was determined when von Braun, and later George Mueller, donned spacesuits, got into Marshall's water immersion facility, and tried to unbolt the proposed hydrogen dome hatch cover through which the Skylab crew was supposed to enter the workshop. (It had to be securely bolted and specially insulated so the tank could serve to hold LH2 during launch.) Neither von Braun nor Mueller could even begin to get the bolts off, highlighting the true difficulties in making the wet workshop concept work.
The decision, again, had nothing to do with the status of MOL or any MOL design considerations. Skylab decision-making and design were completely separate from MOL.
Thanks for that bit of trivia, I always wondered what drove the switch. I just assumed it was budget, or lack of budget to execute the full program.
Though to be fair, based on the above, if they tried to push von Braun through the MOL tunnel I am sure the program would have come to a crashing halt much sooner.
I wonder if Backstar's hint actually means some hardware that has been collecting dust since Nixon will end up on display Dayton.
Got a cite for that? According to the offical history of Skylab VonBraun's only 'comment' after the tests was that there needed to be a few more staps and cable attachments included in the tank design AND nothing regarding "difficulties" in getting into the tank.
Randy
This may have been posted earlier in the thread, but apropros of the prior post, I believe that the open literature states that food supplies from MOL were transferred to Skylab.
This may have been posted earlier in the thread, but apropros of the prior post, I believe that the open literature states that food supplies from MOL were transferred to Skylab.
No, that is not true either. Skylab thought they could leverage MOL crew systems and found that it was an area that there was little work done on it. Skylab food was just a continuation of Apollo food and some Skylab food was tested on Apollo.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4208/ch7.htm#t5
Regarding "cross-pollination" between MOL and Orbital Workshop/Skylab:
And, noting that astronaut autobiographies depend much on the author's PERCEPTIONS of what happened--"I was there." (That person may know less than they think about events that happened to other astronauts, engineers, etc.)
"Skylab at one time had been my baby."
Walter Cunningham reports in Chapter 14 of his book, The All American Boys that Deke Slayton assigned him as the Astronaut Office's representative to the program after his flight on Apollo 7 (late 1968). This was after tenures by Alan Bean, Gordon Cooper, and Owen Garriott.
Cunningham also reports that he prodded management to switch from the Saturn IB "wet workshop" to the Skylab configuration that actually flew.
When MOL was cancelled in 1969, seven of that program's astronauts went to work for NASA. All of these were pilots. Cunningham reports that he assigned them to make decisions about operational hardware.
Cunningham also says that "those two years at the helm of Skylab became my real contribution to manned spaceflight."
Spaceflight history experts: Was Walt Cunningham as crucial to the success of Skylab as he represents in his book? I believe this part of his book is credible--do you?
Therefore:
Might the key not be transfer of hardware or explicit design, but one of knowledge and experience? I assume there was were many specific, classified facts that the ex-MOL astronauts could not speak about. But, they had been working on a space station program for several years before coming to NASA. Did that experience, without divulging specific classified information, help change OWS into the Skylab-as-flown?
Curious,
Zubenelgenubi
Date for your diaries, Oct 22:Wow!
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Upcoming/Lectures.aspx
"The National Reconnaissance Office will also reveal, for the first time, information about the classified elements of the program."
Isn't it stuff like the optical telescope & ELINT gear that's kept it classified so long.
The elint mission was removed from consideration by 1967.
Here's the NRO link.>>>
http://nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL.html
Yes, it is a nice artist's concept, but probably only a sales pitch. It shows an alternative, future MOL configuration: really two MOLs docked end to end, both with their Gemini-B capsules at their opposite ends. The near one has a bay full of earth observation sensors; the far one has an astronomical telescope on an extendable arm. Douglas was trying to sell this as a space station to NASA in the late 1960s. I wonder why it was ever classified. It is consistent with much of the content in the last large release a year ago: a hodgepodge of approved, planned and even wished-for capabilities, without much organization. The approved program when MOL was cancelled in 1969 was more or less the same as in LBJ's announcement in 1965, with only five manned labs intended to fly, one by one.
Isn't it stuff like the optical telescope & ELINT gear that's kept it classified so long.
The elint mission was removed from consideration by 1967.
So that begs the question why the long classification for a canned project, surely not just the optical gear?
It's a long dull story, but in the end it just boils down to inertia. Things remain classified until somebody makes a concerted effort to get them declassified. And if it is sitting in a safe somewhere with a classification stamp on it, it is a pain in the neck and costs money for somebody to declassify it.
Isn't it stuff like the optical telescope & ELINT gear that's kept it classified so long.
The elint mission was removed from consideration by 1967.
So that begs the question why the long classification for a canned project, surely not just the optical gear?
It's a long dull story, but in the end it just boils down to inertia. Things remain classified until somebody makes a concerted effort to get them declassified. And if it is sitting in a safe somewhere with a classification stamp on it, it is a pain in the neck and costs money for somebody to declassify it.
What in particular got them moving on this now then?
Isn't it stuff like the optical telescope & ELINT gear that's kept it classified so long.
The elint mission was removed from consideration by 1967.
So that begs the question why the long classification for a canned project, surely not just the optical gear?
It's a long dull story, but in the end it just boils down to inertia. Things remain classified until somebody makes a concerted effort to get them declassified. And if it is sitting in a safe somewhere with a classification stamp on it, it is a pain in the neck and costs money for somebody to declassify it.
What in particular got them moving on this now then?
Maybe they realized that the original MOL astronauts are beginning to die off (they're getting into their seventies and eighties, now), and they wanted to give the guys who are still with us a chance to talk about their 'til-now classified experiences. I'd love to hear some of their training stories.
I bet the "crew members" will be only able to talk about the capsule and station portions. They probably were aware but not deeply briefed on the payload/camera. We (the members of the forum) probably know more about the payload/camera now, then the "crew members" did back in the day.
How would an Apollo command / service module equipped with the SIM bay camera system measure up to the MOL in earth orbit? Wonder if the DOD or NRO ever looked at flying the Apollo with the SIM bay camera system on classified earth orbit missions? It had proved itself in lunar orbit on three missions.
How would an Apollo command / service module equipped with the SIM bay camera system measure up to the MOL in earth orbit? Wonder if the DOD or NRO ever looked at flying the Apollo with the SIM bay camera system on classified earth orbit missions? It had proved itself in lunar orbit on three missions.
In response to my FOIA request many years ago, NRO has now declassified the official MOL history:Thank you for your tireless effort on bringing this part of spaceflight history to light! I have my weekend reading now.
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL.html
How did the Metric Camera flown aboard Shuttle compare in terms of resolution?
MOL was conceived as a bunch of experiments. At some point it evolved to become essentially an operational reconnaissance satellite. Not clear when or how or why that happened, but it was probably early 1965. So some things that they were thinking of doing early on got tossed. Here is the list of experiments that were finalized:
P-1 Acquisition and Tracking of Ground Targets
P-2 Acquisition and Tracking of Space Targets
P-3 Acquisition of “targets of opportunity” (land/sea)
P-4 Electromagnetic Signal Detection
P-5 In-Space Maintenance
P-6 EVA using Remote Maneuvering Unit
P-7 EVA using Dual Maneuvering Unit
P-8 Autonomous Navigation and Geodesy
P-9 Post attack bomb assessment (later cancelled)
P-10 Multiband Spectral Observations
P-11 General Human Performance in Space
P-12 Biomedical and Physiological Evaluation
P-13 Ocean Surveillance
P-14 Assembly and alignment of large structures in space
P-15 High Resolution Optics System (KH-10 DORIAN camera)
In response to my FOIA request many years ago, NRO has now declassified the official MOL history:Thank you for your tireless effort on bringing this part of spaceflight history to light! I have my weekend reading now.
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL.html
How did the Metric Camera flown aboard Shuttle compare in terms of resolution?
Not even close. That was a mapping camera. MOL's goal resolution was four inches. I don't remember what the shuttle camera resolution was, but probably over 30 feet.
How did the Metric Camera flown aboard Shuttle compare in terms of resolution?
Not even close. That was a mapping camera. MOL's goal resolution was four inches. I don't remember what the shuttle camera resolution was, but probably over 30 feet.
Thanks!
Were the 'Stubby Hubble' mirrors - the ones passed to NASA - built as part of that effort? I presume they were faster than Hubble, but similarly good at light gathering.
If it was a 'metric' camera shouldn't the resolution be 9 metres instead of 30 feet? :-)How did the Metric Camera flown aboard Shuttle compare in terms of resolution?
Not even close. That was a mapping camera. MOL's goal resolution was four inches. I don't remember what the shuttle camera resolution was, but probably over 30 feet.
If it was a 'metric' camera shouldn't the resolution be 9 metres instead of 30 feet? :-)How did the Metric Camera flown aboard Shuttle compare in terms of resolution?
Not even close. That was a mapping camera. MOL's goal resolution was four inches. I don't remember what the shuttle camera resolution was, but probably over 30 feet.
We don't use the dumb metric system.One US engineering project, the McAir (now Boeing) T-45A Goshawk aircraft, uses metric units because it was originally designed and partially manufactured in the UK.
Now there's an off topic issue there. I was brought up knowing both and couldn't care less which one I use. My country changed over in the 60s and we no longer use the British system that the USA uses. But I still think of my height in feet & inches & fuel economy in MPG yet I think in kilometres per hour. I really don't think it matters what anyone uses so long as they understand what it means. My previous post was a joke. Night.I was using both systems throughout my engineering career. All new projects were in SI units, but we were still supporting old projects in Imperial units right into the present decade.
I was using both systems throughout my engineering career. All new projects were in SI units, but we were still supporting old projects in Imperial units right into the present decade.
I'm disappointed. I thought my trolling would catch more fish.
Blackstar, you know there are two types of countries in this world. Those that use metric and those that have been to Pluto ;)
Blackstar, you know there are two types of countries in this world. Those that use metric and those that have been to Pluto ;)
Blackstar, you know there are two types of countries in this world. Those that use metric and those that have been to Pluto ;)
Still digging through the MOL history. A bit dry, but very, very interesting...
Blackstar, you know there are two types of countries in this world. Those that use metric and those that have been to Pluto ;)
Still digging through the MOL history. A bit dry, but very, very interesting...
I've been going through it too. It is dry. There's less hardware and technical detail than I expected, or want. I would like to know much more about the technical issues and camera design. Note that the astronauts are not mentioned at all. Look up some of their names in the index. They're not there.
I hope we get more on the camera system and the relevant subsystems. I've interviewed a few of the astronauts and I should probably go and try and interview more of them.
I wonder if the lack of technical detail was a deliberate choice by the author or just how it worked out.
I wonder if the lack of technical detail was a deliberate choice by the author or just how it worked out.
That's the kind of stuff that Berger wrote. He did institutional histories. I think he is the guy who did a bunch of documents called "The Air Force in Space" that were essentially annual reports. It might have been a case of they asked him to do it and he focused on what he knew.
This history was originally conceived as a multi-volume series which would cover planning, policies, hardware development, and flight operations of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory.
...the work would be done on a part-time basis.
The author began his research in May 1966 on a two-day-a-week basis, a schedule frequently disrupted, however, by the requirements of his own office. He was working on 1967 MOL plans and policies when the project was terminated in June 1969. Subsequently, he prepared three additional chapters covering the important events leading to the President’s decision to terminate the program, all consolidated into this single volume.
Date for your diaries, Oct 22:Wow!
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Upcoming/Lectures.aspx (http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Upcoming/Lectures.aspx)
"The National Reconnaissance Office will also reveal, for the first time, information about the classified elements of the program."
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory Crew Member's Secret Mission in Space
MOL astronauts panel members:
James Abrahamson
Karol Bobko
Albert Crews (added after initial announcement?)
Bob Crippen
Lachlan Macleay
Richard Truly
UPDATE: James Abrahamson and Lachlan MacLeay are unable to participate in the event.
Dr. Michael Yarymovych held several prominent leadership positions in the government, including assistant administrator of the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force, director of NATO AGARD in Paris, France, deputy assistant secretary of the USAF for R&D, and technical director of the USAF Manned Orbital Laboratory. Before that, Yarymovych had several responsible positions with the NASA Headquarters Manned Space Flight Program involved with the Apollo lunar landing effort and initial definition studies of the Space Station and the Space Shuttle.
I wonder if (true/false?) not having high-performance jets at hand made the travel, of which I assume was extensive, more difficult?
1-Was there a selection process similar to that for NASA astronauts?
2-Also, did the MOL astronauts have cover stories for use when on travel, etc.?
Dr. Michael Yarymovych held several prominent leadership positions in the government, including assistant administrator of the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force, director of NATO AGARD in Paris, France, deputy assistant secretary of the USAF for R&D, and technical director of the USAF Manned Orbital Laboratory. Before that, Yarymovych had several responsible positions with the NASA Headquarters Manned Space Flight Program involved with the Apollo lunar landing effort and initial definition studies of the Space Station and the Space Shuttle.
I interviewed Yarymovych many years ago. He was giving a closed-door briefing about MOL on Capitol Hill when he was handed a note that the program had been canceled. He told the members of Congress, who were very annoyed. He'll probably tell that story again.
A constitutional question:
Can Congress, via the power of the purse--to tax and spend, override an executive decision on whether and how much to spend on a classified or "black" program?
Or, to somewhat restate for a particular: How did the legislative branch make its collective will known on a national security issue as the funding or cancellation of MOL?
I assume closed hearings are one such method.
I know there are no budget line-items to make amendments to, because they are black programs.
Or is the answer that Congress is a rubber-stamp on these matters, annoyed or not?
1-Was there a selection process similar to that for NASA astronauts?
2-Also, did the MOL astronauts have cover stories for use when on travel, etc.?
1-No. In fact, at least one of the MOL astronauts was told he had been selected and he had not even applied. Didn't mind that, but it was not like the NASA process--a number of the MOL guys were simply told that they were it.
2-Yes, according to an interview that Peterson did they had cover stories.
I wonder if (true/false?) not having high-performance jets at hand made the travel, of which I assume was extensive, more difficult?
Apparently the jets available to the MOL astronauts were rather poor quality. I believe they had T-33s, which were slow compared to T-38s.
Why was this the case? The T-38 was a standard air force trainer at this time, presumably in some numbers, and the T-33 was getting rather long in the tooth by the standards of the day.
Why was this the case? The T-38 was a standard air force trainer at this time, presumably in some numbers, and the T-33 was getting rather long in the tooth by the standards of the day.
Availability and cost would be the likely reasons.
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 AiSo 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.
1-Also, will there be a web cast? I only see mention of audio podcasts available post-lectures:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/TourPodcasts/Lecture.aspx (http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/TourPodcasts/Lecture.aspx)
2-Are any forum members attending this lecture?
I think the AiSo 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.
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.
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 assume you mean documents like these. Looks like NASA got an IBM 360 out of it... Seems like many of the ground computers where in demand within both the Air Force and NASA
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/807.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/809.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/810.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/811.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/813.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/814.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/820.pdf
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/822.pdf
This one seems to list everything transferred to NASA. Notice included is waste management hardware and technology.
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/mol/823.pdf
Lots of new MOL documents are up:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL.html
And photos too:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL_Pics.html
Is this artwork of a later design?
Do people in the know say "em-oh-ell" or "mol"?
Do people in the know say "em-oh-ell" or "mol"?
They said "mole."
Are there any good images of the camera system or the schematics released over a year ago? I have not had a chance to go through the material.
Do people in the know say "em-oh-ell" or "mol"?
They said "mole."
Oh, OK, so I have been doing it wrong.....lol
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.
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.
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).
I think the AiSo 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.
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.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were absorbed by an unmanned program.
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.
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.
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.
New article is up:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2858/1
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.
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.
I'm having the same trouble ...
EDIT: just tried going to the main page via search engine -- still won't open. Wonder if the site's down? Anybody else tried the article link?
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.
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.
Working for me... wonder if it was a temporary glitch.
I also saw in the photos that a large machine that produced a corregated material for primary structures was being used - I think such material was used on later Titan flights for interstages, so perhaps the machinery lived on.
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.
So only four Gemini-B ? The last NASA Gemini mission was late 1966, so the four ships must have followed them closely in order not to interrupt McDonnell Gemini production line. Perhaps those four Gemini-B were build in 1967, then placed into storage, waiting for the other half of MOL that was never build
(first flight was planned for 1971, so that would be four years spent in storage ? is that reasonnable ?)
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.
No, they were donated to the Smithsonian, which transferred them to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). SAO had already been looking at multi-mirror telescopes, and so when the MOL optics became available in 1970, they started discussions with the University of Arizona about building what became the original MMT.
https://www.mmto.org/node/288
I am wondering about something. I just watched Astrospies again, I wonder how come we didn't training films on the NRO site along with the 3 minute film that is there. Plus I would love to see film or video of the November 1966 launch. If the NRO has it, I hope they put it online someday. The films would have to be declassified or it wouldn't be in Astrospies.
Subsequently, at Hubbard’s suggestion, NASA awarded a study contract to Eastman Kodak (20 January 1970) to undertake a rigorous analysis of what astronomical use could be made of MOL hardware.
The equipment, meanwhile, was stored at the Eastman facility pending NASA’s review of the study and its decision about a future approach.11
Where there any experiments done on one of the Gemini flights concerning MOL?
Where there any experiments done on one of the Gemini flights concerning MOL?
At least some of the experiments that were originally planned for MOL, such as the maneuvering unit, were transferred over to Gemini. I don't know when or why all that happened, but it may be in the documents that were released.
Where there any experiments done on one of the Gemini flights concerning MOL?
At least some of the experiments that were originally planned for MOL, such as the maneuvering unit, were transferred over to Gemini. I don't know when or why all that happened, but it may be in the documents that were released.
Aah. I had always wondered why the AMU flew on 9a. Was this already a long known fact that it was linked to MOL or did this just came public on the recent release of MOL documents?
Hathi Trust website
Does anybody remember seeing any mention of the "D ONKEY" payload in the MOL documents? D ONKEY was a comint payload that was started as part of MOL, but then removed from MOL and flown on an Agena signals intelligence satellite instead. I have some material on it, but I'm trying to remember if any of the 800-plus MOL documents refer to D ONKEY. Any tips?
It would be interesting to known what legal punishment would have happened to someone revealing the NRO existence and details to the outside world (I don't mean a Soviet spy, rather a poor shmo telling too much to his family or friends by mistake)
National trahison ?
(by the way, was disclosure of the NRO allowed by the end of Cold War ? I mean, had Cold War not stopped, would the NRO very existence remained classified ?)
Ok, so that's the main difference between KH-8 and KH-10. Same resolution (4 inch) but KH-10 has the astronauts with some real role to play in the system, albeit limited and at a very high cost.
For something as big and massive as a T-72 tank, does 30 cm or 10 cm makes a difference ?
(all hail the metric system !)
What kind of extremelly small details was the NRO interested about ? Reading car identification plates ? For something as big and massive as a T-72 tank, does 30 cm or 10 cm makes a difference ?
I guess you'll have to wait for part 3 of my article to find out...The 51-year-old, newly-declassified suspense is killing me! :)
I guess you'll have to wait for part 3 of my article to find out...The 51-year-old, newly-declassified suspense is killing me! :)
Not to throw us off topic, but your link also has table entries for Radar and IR. While it seems like such resolution would be achievable from airborne assets, is better than 4" from orbit achievable with Radar and IR?
And I'll confess that I don't know the history of the NIIRS scale. I assume somebody has written about this in a photogrammetry journal, and I assume that before there was a NIIRS scale there was something else.
The history of US reconnaissance satellites has an interesting side-story around 1963-1965 when the CIA (under Bud Wheelon) sought to codify the relationship between resolution and what you could learn from it. There are actually quite a few documents about this, but I have not looked at them closely. Wheelon told me way back in the mid-1990s that when he started battling with NRO, one of the things he wanted to find out what what photo-interpreters could see at different resolutions, so he started a study project to assess that. Some of those documents have been declassified. But what I don't know is the broader context of that. For example, I assume that since there were photo-interpreters during WWII, they had already established some scales/tables on this subject back then, and I don't know why Wheelon needed to do it in 1963. Maybe he simply was unhappy with the quality of the approach to the subject. He was a really smart guy and probably wanted some rigor applied to it.
Changing the subject slightly...
You mentioned in the comments of your Space Review articles that you had interviewed Albert Crews who was selected to fly both X-20 and MOL. Do you know if he ever applied to be a NASA astronaut? He was judged too old to be included in the MOL transfer group in 1969 (Group 7) but did he ever apply for earlier NASA groups?
WWII experience probably needed some updates for recent weapon systems, such as radars, SAMs, ballistic missiles... Plus nuclear power plants and launch complexes.
Changing the subject slightly...
You mentioned in the comments of your Space Review articles that you had interviewed Albert Crews who was selected to fly both X-20 and MOL. Do you know if he ever applied to be a NASA astronaut? He was judged too old to be included in the MOL transfer group in 1969 (Group 7) but did he ever apply for earlier NASA groups?
I'd rather not divert this into the "let's all speculate about astronauts" thread, but I believe he did apply and was turned down. He later became a NASA pilot.
Could you see human beings through a 1 m resolution camera ? The MOL telescope had such resolution, and the crew was to peer at the Soviet Union through it, searching for opportunity targets, and then requesting the KH-10 camera to make pictures.
<snip>Could you see human beings through a 1 m resolution camera ? <snip>
Around same time
McDonnell-Douglas try to sell MOL to NASA as Civilian Space craft
As NASA orbital laboratory for 30-60-90 days mission
proposed were Astronomy instruments or Earth resources scanning
or as Resupplied Vehicle for space station
source:
PSAC Briefing
NASA-MOL
T.J.Gordon
July 20,1968
And I'll confess that I don't know the history of the NIIRS scale. I assume somebody has written about this in a photogrammetry journal, and I assume that before there was a NIIRS scale there was something else.
The history of US reconnaissance satellites has an interesting side-story around 1963-1965 when the CIA (under Bud Wheelon) sought to codify the relationship between resolution and what you could learn from it. There are actually quite a few documents about this, but I have not looked at them closely. Wheelon told me way back in the mid-1990s that when he started battling with NRO, one of the things he wanted to find out what what photo-interpreters could see at different resolutions, so he started a study project to assess that. Some of those documents have been declassified. But what I don't know is the broader context of that. For example, I assume that since there were photo-interpreters during WWII, they had already established some scales/tables on this subject back then, and I don't know why Wheelon needed to do it in 1963. Maybe he simply was unhappy with the quality of the approach to the subject. He was a really smart guy and probably wanted some rigor applied to it.
in june 2014, some one uploaded Video about the Gemini B mock up on vimeo
in a week the Video was remove "Do Copyright Issue"
guess what its back, this time with audio !
https://vimeo.com/102422452
New MOL book:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/history/csnr/programs/Spies_In_Space-Reflections_on_MOL_web.pdf?ver=2019-07-11-135535-820×tamp=1562867746595
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3780/1
Review: Spies in Space
by Dwayne Day
Monday, August 26, 2019
In late 1963, the United States Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office began work on the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program. MOL quickly evolved into a reconnaissance satellite with a large camera system, soon named DORIAN, that would operate for approximately one month in orbit. Two astronauts would ride inside a Gemini spacecraft at the front of the MOL atop a powerful Titan IIIM rocket launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base into a polar orbit. The astronauts would look through spotting scopes at targets on the ground that MOL was about to pass over and feed instructions into a computer that would direct the DORIAN camera to take high-resolution photographs. As MOL progressed, the Air Force selected 17 astronauts to fly aboard it during multiple missions. By mid-1969, however, MOL was behind schedule and over budget and President Richard Nixon canceled it. Although parts of MOL were public, its mission and most of its technology was highly classified. It was not until October 2015 that the NRO declassified a large number of documents about MOL and allowed the surviving MOL astronauts to talk about the program.
This summer the National Reconnaissance Office produced a book by historian Courtney V.K. Homer about the MOL program. Titled Spies in Space, the book is based upon the trove of documents released by the NRO four years ago, and interviews Ms. Homer conducted with six of the MOL astronauts: Richard Truly, Bob Crippen, Al Crews, Karol Bobko, Lachlan Macleay, and James Abrahamson. It can be downloaded as a free PDF from the NRO’s website, or purchased from the US Government Publishing Office.
Spies in Space is the most comprehensive account of the MOL program published to date. At 104 pages long (albeit in rather small print), it is not a lengthy book and could be consumed by an avid reader in a day. Few people are going to plow through the hundreds of declassified MOL documents, so a book based upon them is valuable. But the most important material in the book is based upon the recollections of the MOL astronauts, primarily contained in chapters 3 and 4.
The kind of target of opportunities MOL astronauts would snap photos off ?
The kind of target of opportunities MOL astronauts would snap photos off ?
or X37 :)
My Father Norman designed and built the camera that was to go on the MOL when he was employed at ITEK. He's now 80 years old and in his twilight. One day he went into work and the camera and all the rigs were taken away with the project cancellation notice. Things were very compartmentalized then. The camera later wound up on Skylab.The kind of target of opportunities MOL astronauts would snap photos off ?
or X37 :)
They should really put one of these old KA-80A camera into a X-37.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_Bar_Camera
It blows my mind, the numbers of very different platforms that carried it
- U2 / TR-1 (still carrying it nowadays, even in the digital era !)
- SR-71
- KH-4 or KH-9 (can't remember which one, but it was on spy sat AFAIK)
- the first ever stealth drone, in 1969 > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_AQM-91_Firefly
- Apollo SIM Bay
- It also derived from an earlier camera mounted on a spying balloon (can't remember the exact story)
The versatility of that camera is pretty amazing. Particularly when one consider the extremely varied speeds of all these different platforms...
My Father Norman designed and built the camera that was to go on the MOL when he was employed at ITEK. He's now 80 years old and in his twilight. One day he went into work and the camera and all the rigs were taken away with the project cancellation notice. Things were very compartmentalized then. The camera later wound up on Skylab.
Itek made the spotting scopes for MOL. The big DORIAN camera system was made by Eastman Kodak. Itek may have also had some of the subcomponent work for MOL's camera system.Itek's work was a bit more extensive than that, and did the heavy lifting for Kodak. The key thing that Dad did was the slewing mechanism, which not only required the camera slew back and forth to cover each strip of ground across the path of the satellite, but to account for the satellites forward movement while slewing and at the same time, feeding the film across the aperture at the same rate that the camera slewed crossrange. That was all Itek, not Kodak. Kodak made the "camera" at the center of the system. Dad built the system to make it work. He should get a medal for his contributions to national security.
That you know of. The only thing lacking on Skylab was the large reflective telescope that was planned for MOL that provided most of the magnification (about a meter or so diameter). The MOL's camera and slewing rig was mounted in the Apollo Telescope Mount along with the public astronomy instruments.
My Father Norman designed and built the camera that was to go on the MOL when he was employed at ITEK. He's now 80 years old and in his twilight. One day he went into work and the camera and all the rigs were taken away with the project cancellation notice. Things were very compartmentalized then. The camera later wound up on Skylab.
Again, there was no such camera on Skylab
Itek made the spotting scopes for MOL. The big DORIAN camera system was made by Eastman Kodak. Itek may have also had some of the subcomponent work for MOL's camera system.Itek's work was a bit more extensive than that, and did the heavy lifting for Kodak. The key thing that Dad did was the slewing mechanism, which not only required the camera slew back and forth to cover each strip of ground across the path of the satellite, but to account for the satellites forward movement while slewing and at the same time, feeding the film across the aperture at the same rate that the camera slewed crossrange. That was all Itek, not Kodak. Kodak made the "camera" at the center of the system. Dad built the system to make it work. He should get a medal for his contributions to national security.
That you know of. The only thing lacking on Skylab was the large reflective telescope that was planned for MOL that provided most of the magnification (about a meter or so diameter). The MOL's camera and slewing rig was mounted in the Apollo Telescope Mount along with the public astronomy instruments.
That was all Itek, not Kodak. Kodak made the "camera" at the center of the system. Dad built the system to make it work. He should get a medal for his contributions to national security.
The MOL should have had a kind of "periscope" with a resolution of 9 ft. Astronauts would have peered through it to track targets of opportunity and then send signal to the computer for it to snap pictures. Because the computer was too dumb to anticipate things like clouds, really, wasting film for nothing.
It was called the ATS - Advanced Tracking Scope.
See document 769 on top of that page.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.440
So MOL had film return capsules ? surely enough the Gemini had no room whatsoever to bring back any film, except if one astronauts give his seat and stays behind... not good;
Somebody really has to write "The definitive book about space monkeys" - including the Spacelab ones.
Somebody really has to write "The definitive book about space monkeys" - including the Spacelab ones.
Very few monkeys have written memoirs, so a history would be difficult.
Somebody really has to write "The definitive book about space monkeys" - including the Spacelab ones.
Very few monkeys have written memoirs, so a history would be difficult.
My Father Norman designed and built the camera that was to go on the MOL when he was employed at ITEK. He's now 80 years old and in his twilight. One day he went into work and the camera and all the rigs were taken away with the project cancellation notice. Things were very compartmentalized then. The camera later wound up on Skylab.
Again, there was no such camera on Skylab
My Father Norman designed and built the camera that was to go on the MOL when he was employed at ITEK. He's now 80 years old and in his twilight. One day he went into work and the camera and all the rigs were taken away with the project cancellation notice. Things were very compartmentalized then. The camera later wound up on Skylab.
Again, there was no such camera on Skylab
There were considerations to use existing MOL hardware with the second "dry workshop"
The ATS maybe ? MOL Advanced Tracking Scope. I've seen it mentionned in NRO memos and the date is around September 1969.
Plus the TKS piloted cargo ship. A far, far more expensive development that plain old Gemini-B.But at least the TKS FGB is still being used today. More than we can say about anything Gemini related.
Plus the TKS piloted cargo ship. A far, far more expensive development that plain old Gemini-B.But at least the TKS FGB is still being used today. More than we can say about anything Gemini related.
What is really remarquable is that the MOL would have kind of four different ways / options of transmitting reconnaissance data they gathered, to the NRO HQ and interpreters on the ground. That thing would be a photographic laboratory in orbit, kind off.
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/mol/656.pdf
Seems they wanted to use a film-readout system on DORIAN. FROG, Bimat or another one, I don't know.
What is really remarkable is that the MOL would have kind of four different ways / options of transmitting reconnaissance data they gathered, to the NRO HQ and interpreters on the ground. That thing would be a photographic laboratory in orbit, kind off.
Option 1 the MOL crew gets the picture on polaroids and analyze them from orbit.
Option 2 the MOL crew take the film with them in their Gemini-B and everybody returns Earth
Option 3 the MOL crew dumps the film into the return capsules (since MOL was to have some of them, apparently)
Option 4 the MOL crew put the film into the readout system and beam that to a ground station.
Of course not these options are equal but having all four of them brings some remarquable flexibility to the system.
Deviating a bit back to MOL systems on Skylab, here is a good article. Apologies if already posted.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3860/1
What were the risks of leaks on the NASA side ? Asking differently - do we have any clue whether the Soviets ever tried to spy on LMSS ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Klass
Never heard about him before. The guy had interesting credentials, to say the least - UFO, NRO, and Aviation leak...
Interestingly enough, first mention of spysats in the press was N.Y Times circa 1971 - just as the same time the book got published.
There is a list (a scrapbook ?) somewhere, of the NRO worrying that their job (not their existence) had leaked in the press. Between 1971 and 1975 there were half a dozen of mentions here and there.
The DOD/NASA report also mentioned launches of “self-contained
mission modules which possessed their own crews to operate specific mission
equipment.”
Might these “mission modules” have carried the humanoperated
KH-10 very high-resolution camera system, code named Dorian,
developed during the 1960s for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL)
program? That program was canceled on June 10, 1969, just as the DOD/
NASA shuttle report was being prepared. The MOL combined a capsule
based on NASA’s Gemini spacecraft, to be used during launch and reentry,
and a two-segment module containing the Dorian camera system and crew
quarters.
The 1971 NASA draft letter said, “the shuttle could be equipped
to perform the MOL mission for seven days on station . . . Alternatively, the
shuttle could transport MOL-like equipment in a self-supporting module to
the desired orbit for operation over a longer period of time.” Such missions
would most likely have been launched into polar orbit so they would overfly
all areas of the world, and would return to Vandenberg at their completion,
thus requiring cross-range capability.21
One can wonder if there was some program to build a "KH-10 pallet" to go into the Shuttle payload bay.
SWS NO . 2 CAN SUPPORT MAJOR SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS SUCH AS :
• STELLAR TELESCOPE - 72''
• EXPANDED EARTH RESOURCES
• ADVANCED SOLAR ATM - B
- This experiment package contains
a large aperture non-defraction limited UV telescope, which is a
modification of the OAO Goddard Instrument Package. It is a one meter
aperture system capable of conducting stellar observations of exteIl.ded
and point sources, Using spectrographiC, photometric and imaging
techniques.
Modification to the OAO instrument include deSigning
critical subsystems for maintenance and servicing by the astronaut
and adding the imagery and spectrographic capability taking advantage
of man's presence for changing film.
ASA Astronomy Program Considerations of DORIAN Technology The NASA Orbiting Astronomy activities center prin-cipally on the 0A0 Program. This program which has been underway since 1965 is approaching completion of a highly successful and scientifically useful year of astronomical observations by OAO-II. A description of the instrument package in this spacecraft is in the attachment.
OAO-B is currently scheduled for launch in the 4th quarter of this year, but may be delayed if OAO-II continues to perform satisfactorily. OAO-B will fly a Goddard scanning spectro-meter that has a high quality 38 inch diameter cassegrain telescope.
This spacecraft is to be followed in 12 months by OAO-C which will include the Princeton Experiment Package with a high resolution 32 inch cassegrain telescope. OAO-D is planned two years later and while its experiment package has not been firmly identified, it will probably carry a single large telescope based on the OAO-B instrument.
The Agency's plans call for an evolutionary continuation of the OAO series featuring instrument improvements in both performance and capability. By OAO-G, in the early 1980's, the plan calls for a man tended 120 inch diameter diffraction limited telescope in orbit for a much extended duration.
At Col Allen's suggestion, I discussed this matter with Dr. A. Mienel who along with others has just recently completed a review of the status of competence and capabilities of our major optical manufacturer for Dr. Land under his PSAC responsibilities
I am aware of some discussion of a two meter stellar telescope, a derivative of the Apollo Telescope Mount, as a primary element of the second dry workshop in AAP. This mission is currently scheduled for mid calendar 1974.
In order to meet such a schedule, the telescope work should be initiated at once--especially if it is to be done by a supplier other than Eastman. Perhaps if a sufficient transfer of technology could be arranged, NASA could begin a two meter program with either Itek or Perkin Elmer and a more lengthy three meter program with the other. Mienel feels either could do either job.
(Spliting my post after the two previous atempts fell into a FILE 403 black hole: the documents busted the forum attachment limit !)
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.
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.
This certainly meshes well with the general impression I’ve picked up from public histories of the MOL program - that it was at some level an excuse to get military personnel in space because of course they had to be there. And that it really painfully meandered because it didn’t truly have a good reason to exist beyond Air Force desperation that it must. And like most programs without a practical purpose, it meandered and then finally failed.
QuoteIt's clear what NASA had to gain from the NRO's technology, be it off the shelf mirrors, or innovations like the CMG. It's not so clear to me what the NRO would gain, but I'm sure it's contractors saw it as win-win, as per other discussions/articles here.
It would be interesting to know if the NRO, as opposed to the white AF, had any people sympathetic to manned spaceflight pre Hans Mark.
Well, the people who pushed for the MOL circa 1963 - for a start. But they quickly lost that battle: by 1966-69, were discussions about an unmanned MOL perhaps for the VHR mission.
Not sure. Hopefully a MOL expert can enlighten me but its not clear to me whether
1. [NRO] "pushed for the MOL circa 1963"
or
2. The white AF started MOL when Dynasoar was cancelled, and then it needed a raison d'etre, which the NRO provided via KH-10 DORIAN. Was DORIAN actually needed in order to bring MOL into being, or was it added post hoc ? The released docs should say so by now, I'd hope.
[Edit: On looking up the excellent CSNR "MOL Compendium", attached, I see it is much more #2 than #1. Read pp 36ff.]
2. The white AF started MOL when Dynasoar was cancelled, and then it needed a raison d'etre, which the NRO provided via KH-10 DORIAN. Was DORIAN actually needed in order to bring MOL into being, or was it added post hoc ? The released docs should say so by now, I'd hope.
No DORIAN, no MOL
This is supported by Lew Allen's comment (page 2 in the PDF):We tend to forget indeed that, at least between 1963 and 1965, "USAF MOL" =/= "NRO KH-10".<snip>
Was the story that the Air Force couldn't found any use to a military space station in 1963-64 - and then NRO said "how about a manned spysat ?" and Johnson got the program running for real in 1965 ?
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.
<snip>
"For instance, MOL was decided upon when DYNASOAR was cancelled, because it was felt one shouldn't cancel something without allowing some alternate program; and many felt it was essential that DOD have some kind of man-in-space effort if the national commitment to Apollo was really going to generate a new era of manned space flight. Having decided on MOL, it took some time to decide what to do with it; and when nothing else made sense, the DORIAN mission was, in some sense, forced.
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05096266.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05096266.pdf)
Thanks for reminding me of that. I saw that document. I think the relevant issue is when did it become official that reconnaissance would become the primary mission, and how?
I do remember seeing a document in that big trove of stuff I mentioned that we found at AFHRA that was one MOL officer writing to another MOL officer about how for the past year (so this would have been late 1964) they had been "unable to get MOL off dead center." It wasn't progressing anywhere in this guy's view. When I saw that memo it indicated to me that the reconnaissance mission was not incorporated until 1965.
But I don't know that. I'm just going from memory here.
Very interesting stuff. Well by the name only "manned orbiting laboratory" clearly the mission was ill-defined. A laboratory for WHAT ?
No, not really ... by that logic both Discoverer and the Defense Support Program would have ill-defined missions ... "What's in a name ? A rose by any other name ..." etc.
There is at least one case, Discoverer, where the open name is more informative than the BYEMAN name.QuoteQuoteOnce DORIAN was essentially a fact, it was judged
by some ( Land Panel) that if one were to have such a high-quality,
manned system one must have an automated version for operation,
in the event that man proved difficult. This led to unmanned MOL,
a contradiction in terms and I think, in this case, the Land Panel
led the Govermnent down ~ atrocious, illogical path based on
irrefutable, scientific logic and no practical judgment.
I have this feeling that Lew Allen and Din Land were not best friends in the entire world (Carthage quote, too).
Could be. His contrast of irrefutable logic and practical judgement is very interesting and typically pithy, as is the insight that irrefutable logic can lead one down an illogical path ...
However I concur with @hoku that the Allen-Land Panel relationship and wider turf wars, fit best in the ongoing KH-11 thread.
And one new post. I hadn't realised until I read Joe Page's TSR article on doing planetary astronomy with MOL
(where would that topic fit by the way?)
Also moving this one over:
Quote from: hoku on 10/08/2021 10:32 pm
Quote from: Blackstar on 10/08/2021 09:15 pm
Quote from: libra on 10/08/2021 04:56 pm
We tend to forget indeed that, at least between 1963 and 1965, "USAF MOL" =/= "NRO KH-10".
Was the story that the Air Force couldn't found any use to a military space station in 1963-64 - and then NRO said "how about a manned spysat ?" and Johnson got the program running for real in 1965 ?
<snip>
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.
<snip>
This is supported by Lew Allen's comment (page 2 in the PDF):
"For instance, MOL was decided upon when DYNASOAR was cancelled, because it was felt one shouldn't cancel something without allowing some alternate program; and many felt it was essential that DOD have some kind of man-in-space effort if the national commitment to Apollo was really going to generate a new era of manned space flight. Having decided on MOL, it took some time to decide what to do with it; and when nothing else made sense, the DORIAN mission was, in some sense, forced.
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05096266.pdf
Thanks for reminding me of that. I saw that document. I think the relevant issue is when did it become official that reconnaissance would become the primary mission, and how?
I do remember seeing a document in that big trove of stuff I mentioned that we found at AFHRA that was one MOL officer writing to another MOL officer about how for the past year (so this would have been late 1964) they had been "unable to get MOL off dead center." It wasn't progressing anywhere in this guy's view. When I saw that memo it indicated to me that the reconnaissance mission was not incorporated until 1965.
But I don't know that. I'm just going from memory here.
QuoteAnd one new post. I hadn't realised until I read Joe Page's TSR article on doing planetary astronomy with MOL
(where would that topic fit by the way?)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3290/1
An excellent reading, really. A pity astronomy couldn't be a valuable mission for a military space station. Would have rescued the MOL and we would have had pictures of Pluto and Charon separated decades before Hubble (or maybe not: maybe 72 inch mirror wasn't enough to separate them...) Half-joking of course.
<snip>
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.
<snip>
The forepart of the spacecraft is the orbital module (Russian: бытовой отсек, romanized: bytovoi otsek), also known as habitation section. It houses all the equipment that will not be needed for reentry, such as experiments, cameras or cargo. The module also contains a toilet, docking avionics and communications gear. Internal volume is 6 m3 (210 cu ft), living space 5 m3 (180 cu ft).
LM cabin
Crew: 2
Crew cabin volume: 235 cu ft (6.7 m3)
Habitable volume: 160 cu ft (4.5 m3)
CSM
The central pressure vessel of the command module was its sole habitable compartment. It had an interior volume of 210 cubic feet (5.9 m3) and housed the main control panels, crew seats, guidance and navigation systems, food and equipment lockers, the waste management system, and the docking tunnel.
<snip>
Without a proper look I don't know if they had white or secret level counterparts.
<snip>
Also moving this one over:
Quote from: hoku on 10/08/2021 10:32 pm
Quote from: Blackstar on 10/08/2021 09:15 pm
Quote from: libra on 10/08/2021 04:56 pm
We tend to forget indeed that, at least between 1963 and 1965, "USAF MOL" =/= "NRO KH-10".
Was the story that the Air Force couldn't found any use to a military space station in 1963-64 - and then NRO said "how about a manned spysat ?" and Johnson got the program running for real in 1965 ?
<snip>
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.
<snip>
This is supported by Lew Allen's comment (page 2 in the PDF):
"For instance, MOL was decided upon when DYNASOAR was cancelled, because it was felt one shouldn't cancel something without allowing some alternate program; and many felt it was essential that DOD have some kind of man-in-space effort if the national commitment to Apollo was really going to generate a new era of manned space flight. Having decided on MOL, it took some time to decide what to do with it; and when nothing else made sense, the DORIAN mission was, in some sense, forced.
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05096266.pdf
Thanks for reminding me of that. I saw that document. I think the relevant issue is when did it become official that reconnaissance would become the primary mission, and how?
I do remember seeing a document in that big trove of stuff I mentioned that we found at AFHRA that was one MOL officer writing to another MOL officer about how for the past year (so this would have been late 1964) they had been "unable to get MOL off dead center." It wasn't progressing anywhere in this guy's view. When I saw that memo it indicated to me that the reconnaissance mission was not incorporated until 1965.
But I don't know that. I'm just going from memory here.
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.
And a key question in all of this is what did the CIA think of MOL/DORIAN? I have anecdotal evidence indicating that they thought it was dumb, that very high resolution was unnecessary from an intelligence standpoint. Perhaps some of this was based upon their 1963 Purcell Report, which indicated that the "ideal" system had GAMBIT-1's resolution and CORONA's area coverage. Of course, you can parse that out a lot, because just because that was what they wanted for strategic assessment of the USSR does not mean that high resolution did not have any value.
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.
<snip>
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.)
<snip>
Intriguingly, and to me inexplicably, that remains true even in mid '66, in the attached slide set, document #259, "Leonard Briefing" where Elint is being discussed even at Special Handling level. I think this the same classification that 266/949, later known as DSP was at, rather than a BYEMAN level ? [Edit: sorry, forgot to add slides pdf]
After all the Soviets managed to squeeze a toilet in their cramped Soyuz...
Intriguingly, and to me inexplicably, that remains true even in mid '66, in the attached slide set, document #259, "Leonard Briefing" where Elint is being discussed even at Special Handling level. I think this the same classification that 266/949, later known as DSP was at, rather than a BYEMAN level ? [Edit: sorry, forgot to add slides pdf]
The newly released version of chapter 4 of "The SIGINT Satellite Story" has a bit more about the classification levels for signals intelligence. I've read it, but I don't quite understand it. I think that the information was taken into the BYEMAN security control system in 1963 (they changed the overall SIGINT compartment name from EARDROP to EARPOP). That precedes this stuff on MOL. I'll check my notes, but I still don't understand why this stuff would be at lower level than that. Of course, ELINT/SIGINT got dropped off of MOL along with everything else. They put all the focus on the optical payload.
I think I just saw something in one of the EOI documents that mentioned MOL and implies that they were considering linking the optical system to the ELINT sensors. The idea was that if they detected a signal, they could use that to point the telescope and take a photo of the emitter. The problem with that is that the ELINT sensors on satellites were not that accurate. They could geolocate targets to something like 17 square nautical miles. And the DORIAN camera system had a really small field of view. So it strikes me that they would pick up a target and when they pointed the camera, they were unlikely to photograph the actual emitter. Like shooting at sounds in the dark.
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.
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.
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?
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.
GAMBIT wasn't too bad no ? ;) But otherwise... SAMOS and MOL were no successes, indeed...
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.
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:https://web.archive.org/web/20070305205226/http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/summer2004/02.html
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.
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 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]
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.
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.
It's durian fruit.
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>
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.
3. Who was the sponsor(s) of Aerospace's work between its creation in 1960 and the creation of the NRO in 61 ?
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.
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.
Remember that Aerospace Corp. is descended from Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, so they started out doing USAF missile work, then added space work, then added NRO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRW_Inc.
Considering that most of Vick's citations were my work, he probably got that from me. If he did, I don't remember where I got it.
<snip>
Note that the only thing on the lunar base study that I think is public is the declassified NASA memo that I have attached here. It includes a pencil sketch that I have also attached.
<snip>
The two that interest me are the SR-192 Lunar Strategic System study, and SR-181 the Strategic Earth System Study.
I am trying to get them declassified. One thing I've discovered is that in Air Force records there were a bunch of contractor reports and they may have all been rolled up into a single "study." In other words, what is listed as a study is really a collection of contractor reports and not necessarily a final report by the Air Force or a single contractor. It's a bit confusing.
If we did not have Hartman's sketches, we would have nothing at all--that study remains classified. So I'm happy that I found his memo.
In the grand scheme of things, I don't think that the absence of these studies (which remain classified, not public) seriously harms our understanding of the history of the US Air Force in space. This was one small moment in the history of Air Force space [...] But I also think that they could provide important context for what people were thinking about during this period (1958-1960) and maybe also context about what happened later.
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.
Grabs popcorn
Thanks. I've left the SR-178 specific posts as I think they remind one that the beginning and end of DORIAN were not entirely tidy. There is a genuinely interesting question about which of the many AF studies in the late 50s and early 60s would have fed into the genesis of MOL, and how they would have done so.
I assume you got the articles from the 100 year anniversary collection. So, a subscriber can pull invidual pages from those issues for his or her use?
And here's the other article from July '63 i.e. a few months before the cancellation of Dynasoar. To me it feels more like Aviation Week is being briefed this time, but whether its image of Titan 3 "canister + Gemini" design is based on its sources is not terribly clear. It refers back to several previous SR studies, and shows a pic from one of them (MTSS).
As with the other piece it may not be of much factual use but it is a nice snapshot of the Zeitgeist. And I love those vintage corporate ads, of the type so well collected in the book "Another Science Fiction".
it looks so far to me if SR-178 had two (competing?) prime contractors, one was Boeing and the other North American. Without a systematic reading I'm not sure but it looked as if all the other documents listed were attached to one or other team
Just makes me more curious as to where Aerospace's role (if any) in all this would have been, granted that at least one of the SR series was run out of Wright-Patterson.
And here's the other article from July '63 i.e. a few months before the cancellation of Dynasoar. To me it feels more like Aviation Week is being briefed this time, but whether its image of Titan 3 "canister + Gemini" design is based on its sources is not terribly clear. It refers back to several previous SR studies, and shows a pic from one of them (MTSS).
A
The military spacecraft would include surveillance cameras and a powerful transtage rocket motor for large orbit changes and fast satellite inspection missions.
QuoteThe military spacecraft would include surveillance cameras and a powerful transtage rocket motor for large orbit changes and fast satellite inspection missions.
Make some sense, and I wonder why such capability was never considered for the MOL. I mean, even a Transtage (with modest specific impulse and mass fraction) could provide a MOL with 1 to 2 km/s of delta-v; enough to climb pretty high or make plane changes of some degrees (less than 10 degrees for sure).
Basically : 9.81*315*ln((14+15)/(2.8+15) = 1508 m/s
(a 15 mt MOL, and a Transtage of 14 mt, mass fraction 0.80 and modest specific impulse typical of storables. Launched separately, each one on a Titan III-M, 38000 pounds to orbit is a bit more than 17 mt)
For the sake of comparison, Gemini 10 & 11 "high rides" took 280 m/s, one-way... the orbits were not circularized, however - only the apogee was raised, then lowered.
though the connection of some artists' impressions to reality is known to be a bit tenuous for MOL.
though the connection of some artists' impressions to reality is known to be a bit tenuous for MOL.
This is something that I've always found rather odd. MOL had a clearly defined mission by 1965-66. And yet there was this artwork depicting other somewhat fantastical concepts. Why? Possible explanations:
-they were disinformation intended to hide the intelligence mission
-the artists and contractors who produced them were not cleared and had no idea what MOL actually was
-they were produced to accompany proposals for other missions and hardware
-they were aspirational, produced by companies that wanted bigger parts of MOL
-they were entirely for public consumption, as a way of depicting a program without giving any clue to its actual purpose (similar to the first one, but less malevolent/intentional--more along the lines of a manager telling an artist "draw a spaceship for our advertisement for our valves")
I sort of lean toward the last explanation. I've talked to a few space artists over the years and sometimes they were given very good info and explicit instructions, and sometimes they were just told to go draw a cool spaceplane.
One step along the way that we are con-
sidering is a large stellar telescope (ATM-B) for operation with the
second "dry workshop", planned for flight in 1974. We have, with the
assistance of the MOL team, taken steps to have Dr. Aden Meinel of the
University of Arizona and Messrs. Olivier and Waite from the Marshall
Space Flight Center examine the existing MOL hardware at Eastman Kodak.
Their purpose is to make a preliminary evaluation as to the suitability
of this equipment for stellar astronomy, the steps that might be
required to so modify it, and the probable compatibility of the system
with the Apollo Telescope Mount and dry workshop. We expect to have
their preliminary findings within several weeks [September 12, 1969]
Just wanted to mention I checked Skylab ATM internal diameter - the so called Experiment canister.
It was 84 inch in diameter: plenty enough for an OAO UV telescope of 38 inch; and also for a MOL 72 inch mirror.
I didn't thought the Apollo Telescope Mount would be wide enough a MOL mirror could fit inside... and I was wrong. The ATM was one huge piece of hardware, when you think about it.
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/mol/770.pdfQuoteOne step along the way that we are con-
sidering is a large stellar telescope (ATM-B) for operation with the
second "dry workshop", planned for flight in 1974. We have, with the
assistance of the MOL team, taken steps to have Dr. Aden Meinel of the
University of Arizona and Messrs. Olivier and Waite from the Marshall
Space Flight Center examine the existing MOL hardware at Eastman Kodak.
Their purpose is to make a preliminary evaluation as to the suitability
of this equipment for stellar astronomy, the steps that might be
required to so modify it, and the probable compatibility of the system
with the Apollo Telescope Mount and dry workshop. We expect to have
their preliminary findings within several weeks [September 12, 1969]
Even if the mirror inside the ATM could NOT be used for spying the Soviets (not as a telescope) it's pretty fun to think a Skylab nearly got a MOL reflector... could be the basis of a technothriller where NASA Skylab performs a "dual mission": ATM officially, spying the Soviets unofficially.
I'm sure that as well as a Clancy/Crichton-esque technothriller there's a whole thread's worth on the fictional lives of Skylab.
But staying sort of on topic, wouldn't the dual mission require rolling the spacecraft all the time ? Or would your covert version use a souped-up EREP ?
You are speaking straight to my heart here, but that's not the right place to go "fiction / alt-history".QuoteI'm sure that as well as a Clancy/Crichton-esque technothriller there's a whole thread's worth on the fictional lives of Skylab.
English not my native language and I don't understand the meaning of this sentence, sorry.QuoteBut staying sort of on topic, wouldn't the dual mission require rolling the spacecraft all the time ? Or would your covert version use a souped-up EREP ?
Probably incompatible with Skylab basic mission for sure. ATM looked... UPWARDs (ha ha, what a lame joke !) when a spysat needs to look downwards - so yes I suppose Skylab would have to do all kind of bizarre orbital manoeuvering. And since it lacked thrusters, as seen when trying to desorbit the thing properly...
Geez, now that's an idea.
The year is 1969. On June 10 MOL has been canned. Less than six weeks later on July 22, dry workshop Skylab is a go for NASA.
The civilian space program seemingly has won the "battle of space stations".
But USAF has a "Plan B"...
Since 1965 Congress has pestered them requesting MOL and AAP space stations to be merged.
Since 1963 NASA has asked spysat after spysat, for many different missions. Including putting a MOL mirror into Skylab-B ATM for stellar astronomy.
Enough is enough... USAF rams into NASA, a cover mission for Skylab B's ATM: spying the Soviets...
Ain't that a terrific pitch ?
Re pitches though, as William Gibson has remarked, it's hard to pitch something that is as strange as reality, these days. But maybe that's why we read fiction, sometimes ?
QuoteRe pitches though, as William Gibson has remarked, it's hard to pitch something that is as strange as reality, these days. But maybe that's why we read fiction, sometimes ?
no idea who he is, but I will note two things
a) He nailed it perfectly
b) Is he related to the Gibson who flew to Skylab ?
QuoteRe pitches though, as William Gibson has remarked, it's hard to pitch something that is as strange as reality, these days. But maybe that's why we read fiction, sometimes ?
no idea who he is, but I will note two things
QuoteRe pitches though, as William Gibson has remarked, it's hard to pitch something that is as strange as reality, these days. But maybe that's why we read fiction, sometimes ?
no idea who he is, but I will note two things
Science fiction writer. Started writing cyberpunk. Hit it big in the 1980s with "Neuromancer," one of my favorite books. It is about an artificial intelligence manipulating various people so that it can be set free upon the world. He was very influential. Most of his early books were set about 100-150 years in the future. But eventually he concluded that "the future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed yet,"
by which he meant that we are surrounded by things that we would have considered futuristic only a few years earlier. So increasingly his books were set in the present, but with technological aspects that seem futuristic but in many ways are just variations of what already exists. Interviews with him are often highly insightful.
SKYLAB Earth Terrain Camera approved as an exception to 20 meter guideline set in 1966
At that time, it was mentioned that NASA did not yet have final approval to employ the camera
[Skylab] Earth Terrain Camera had a ground resolution of 15 to 30 meters
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2339062#msg2339062
Cross posting
MOL was so big it was managed from AFSC HQ in DC vs SSD/SAMSO in LA
I never paid much attention to that, but it seems rather important (and we should take any discussion of that to the MOL thread). But for MOL there was:
-launch vehicle procurement (and ground infrastructure like SLC-6)
-Gemini procurement
-the pressurized lab module and its associated equipment like life support, etc.
-ancillary stuff, like spacesuits. etc.
That's a LOT of stuff to pay for. If that was all loaded on USAF, and NRO only had the optical system (admittedly, that was a big "only"), that put a lot of MOL's costs outside of the NRO and onto the USAF space program. Now there were legitimate reasons to do that, including security (for instance, you can buy the Gemini spacecraft with an unclassified contract), but it still had the effect of keeping NRO's budget a lot lower than it actually was, considering that MOL was an NRO mission.
Something that came up in the Hans Mark NRO interview is that as long as the NRO budget was below a magic amount ($1 billion), there was almost no congressional oversight. But the people in charge were keeping it below that number by pushing lots of costs, including launch vehicles, onto the USAF. Similarly, when SDS came along, the plan was to procure it as a classified USAF program and the NRO part would only be a communications payload. Now this happened to be the primary payload and ultimately the only convincing justification for building SDS, but once again they were being sneaky. Of course, they're the intelligence community, so sneaky is part of the job description.
There is also the experimental work on readout that we also discussed a little bit upthread. Was that funded by NRO or USAF ?
Boeing is selling the former Douglas Huntington Beach facility
https://goo.gl/maps/QD4jceqPfLQ8ieXs7
A number of years ago I interviewed MOL astronaut Al Crews. He was a great contrast to Crippen and Truly, who were very positive and loved MOL. Crews thought that MOL had a lot of problems and he said he was not surprised when it was canceled. One of the things he said bothered him on MOL was that the contractors were building a lot of new, expensive facilities. He thought this was an indication that the program was gold-plated and wasting money.How much of that infrastructure ended up benefitting other programmes? Presumably the tooling for grinding and inspecting ultra large diameter mirrors at Kodak went on to be a big help in getting KH-11 optics done quicker (and cheaper) than if those had to be built from scratch.
He may have been right. But it's also true that MOL was a major increase in capability, both in terms of the optics system and the human systems. USAF had not developed a human spacecraft before, so this was new and required new capabilities and facilities. Naturally, that was all going to cost a lot of money simply for infrastructure. Plus there was that big rocket and launch site.
How much of that infrastructure ended up benefitting other programmes? Presumably the tooling for grinding and inspecting ultra large diameter mirrors at Kodak went on to be a big help in getting KH-11 optics done quicker (and cheaper) than if those had to be built from scratch.
Probably lots of it got used for other programs. But there was also probably some excess as well, like facilities and capabilities that were not fully utilized because they were unneeded, or because what was built for MOL was too big for what followed. I think (Jim probably knows) that the big assembly building built for MOL was eventually used for Delta II.
The Titan III I-T-L launch area at CCAFS (VIB + SMAB+ LC-40 /41) was over-sized for very high flight rates that never materialized. A mistake somewhat similar to the Shuttle's 10 years later.
They got the planned flight rates way out in the blue.
The Titan III I-T-L launch area at CCAFS (VIB + SMAB+ LC-40 /41) was over-sized for very high flight rates that never materialized. A mistake somewhat similar to the Shuttle's 10 years later.
They got the planned flight rates way out in the blue.
In the words of Niels Bohr "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future". It could easily be adapted to rocket flight rates
"Prediction of rocket launch rates is very difficult, especially if it's about future launch rates."
The Titan III I-T-L launch area at CCAFS (VIB + SMAB+ LC-40 /41) was over-sized for very high flight rates that never materialized. A mistake somewhat similar to the Shuttle's 10 years later.
They got the planned flight rates way out in the blue.
I can see that without MOL the launch rates were low, and that Ed Kyle notes that it barely needed two pads: " The site has, as a result, never supported more than four launches in a single year, even when both pads were active. LC 40 remained active, except for rebuilding periods, from 1965 until the end of the program in 2005. LC41 was mothballed in 1969, was reactivated for seven NASA Titan 3E/Centaur launches during 1974-1977, then was mothballed again until it was rebuilt to support Titan 4 beginning in 1989. The pad was finally demolished in 1999 to make way for a new Atlas 5 launch facility. " https://spacelaunchreport.com/titan4.html
But what were the higher rates initially expected to be i.e. what was the hypothetical MOL rate ?
The Titan III I-T-L launch area at CCAFS (VIB + SMAB+ LC-40 /41) was over-sized for very high flight rates that never materialized. A mistake somewhat similar to the Shuttle's 10 years later.
They got the planned flight rates way out in the blue.
I can see that without MOL the launch rates were low, and that Ed Kyle notes that it barely needed two pads: " The site has, as a result, never supported more than four launches in a single year, even when both pads were active. LC 40 remained active, except for rebuilding periods, from 1965 until the end of the program in 2005. LC41 was mothballed in 1969, was reactivated for seven NASA Titan 3E/Centaur launches during 1974-1977, then was mothballed again until it was rebuilt to support Titan 4 beginning in 1989. The pad was finally demolished in 1999 to make way for a new Atlas 5 launch facility. " https://spacelaunchreport.com/titan4.html
We've strayed off MOL here. libra mentioned CCAFS, which was never going to handle MOL.
They were usually budgeting for seven flights (dropping to six flights a couple of times). Of these, the first two were "qualification" flights, not operational. Those two were always supposed to happen within 8 months before the first operational flight. That leaves 5 operational flights, 3 manned, 2 unmanned. I don't know the rate for those five flights, but I would assume no more than 2 per year, for a 3-year program.
And considering the big expense of the MOL program, only six (or four) flights ain't much of a return.
KH-9 got 20 missions, and KH-11 is (kind of) still running as of today, also 20 missions and counting (lost the count a while back). And they operated across many decades.
Why only 4 MOL missions ?
About the "distraction": sure, CCAFS would never launch MOL because of the well-known launch azimuth issues with Florida. 57 degree or 62 degrees at best, but never, ever 90 degrees.
We've strayed off MOL here. libra mentioned CCAFS, which was never going to handle MOL.
Interesting. So why was the one-off IIIC launch of a dummy MOL done at the East coast ? Was it that no similar launch could be done at west coast until SLC-6 and the IIIM was available for MOL proper ?
As ITL construction got underway in the summer of 1963, officers and men poured into the TITAN III/X-20 Division to oversee the work. [...]. Following cancellation of the DYNA SOAR project in 1963, the Division was renamed the TITAN III Division, and it was reorganized into three branches in 1964 to provide more efficient supervision of the contractors' efforts. [...] Rounding out the year [1964] in December, the TITAN III Division gained a new agency -- the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Branch -- with Major Joseph R. Henry as its chief. The MOL Branch became the Payloads Branch in the last half of 1965, and it assumed responsibility for all TITAN IIIC payloads.26
Since the Air Force intended to use Complex 40 for its Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) flights, Complex 41 eventually supported all the TITAN IIIC missions launched from the Cape between the beginning of 1967 and the end of the decade.
All of the this came seemingly crashing down in early June of 1969, when the Nixon administration announced the cancellation of the Manned Orbital Laboratory. While the public announcement stated that the whole program was being cancelled, the (initial) internal guidance was to continue the work on the covert contract for the camera payload. A four-stage plan was devised, which included as Stage II "(...) a competition between MOL and HEXAGON contractors, to select best configuration/performance/cost (...)".
I'll post more on the "conclusion" of the story later ...
Boeing is selling the former Douglas Huntington Beach facility
https://goo.gl/maps/QD4jceqPfLQ8ieXs7
There is some original art showing the cutaway of that building. It shows how they stacked the various components inside there. MOL was a long vehicle, so a lot of components had to be stacked on top of each other vertically.
I think NRO like the artwork so much it was reused as part of the collage used as a section divider in the MOL compendium document.
I think NRO like the artwork so much it was reused as part of the collage used as a section divider in the MOL compendium document.
I think that cutaway is in color. They had some nice artwork of that building.
I think NRO like the artwork so much it was reused as part of the collage used as a section divider in the MOL compendium document.
I think that cutaway is in color. They had some nice artwork of that building.
I'm afraid that's only place I've seen it, don't know where colour version is.
About the "distraction": sure, CCAFS would never launch MOL because of the well-known launch azimuth issues with Florida. 57 degree or 62 degrees at best, but never, ever 90 degrees.
Presumably that was true when MOL's mission had firmed up to be DORIAN/KH-10.
Is it obvious that was true right from the start, when it notionally had a much wider mission ? And also wouldn't flying it only from the WTR have been a rather obvious-but I guess unavoidable-tipoff as to what its actual mission was ?
Turns out that people were in fact worried about precisely this issue, and that in early '64 some urged that MOL should be launched from the Cape. See below from Berger history in MOL compendium version.
I'm wondering if the final choice of WTR only was in fact not made until mid-1965.
Turns out that people were in fact worried about precisely this issue, and that in early '64 some urged that MOL should be launched from the Cape. See below from Berger history in MOL compendium version.
I'm wondering if the final choice of WTR only was in fact not made until mid-1965.
Martin's comment there is really a bit of a mind-bender: if they launch from Vandenberg, people would conclude it was a reconnaissance satellite because that's the only reason to launch from there. So instead they should launch from the Cape. Er... but shouldn't the mission requirements drive the launch site decision? They were never going to launch a photo-reconnaissance satellite from the Cape, because it could not go into polar orbit that way. (And by extension, if they did put it into polar orbit from the Cape--at a major hit to the payload capability--people would still conclude that it was a reconnaissance satellite because of the orbit itself, not the launch site.)
Turns out that people were in fact worried about precisely this issue, and that in early '64 some urged that MOL should be launched from the Cape. See below from Berger history in MOL compendium version.
I'm wondering if the final choice of WTR only was in fact not made until mid-1965.
Martin's comment there is really a bit of a mind-bender: if they launch from Vandenberg, people would conclude it was a reconnaissance satellite because that's the only reason to launch from there. So instead they should launch from the Cape. Er... but shouldn't the mission requirements drive the launch site decision? They were never going to launch a photo-reconnaissance satellite from the Cape, because it could not go into polar orbit that way. (And by extension, if they did put it into polar orbit from the Cape--at a major hit to the payload capability--people would still conclude that it was a reconnaissance satellite because of the orbit itself, not the launch site.)
Turns out that people were in fact worried about precisely this issue, and that in early '64 some urged that MOL should be launched from the Cape. See below from Berger history in MOL compendium version.
I'm wondering if the final choice of WTR only was in fact not made until mid-1965.
Martin's comment there is really a bit of a mind-bender: if they launch from Vandenberg, people would conclude it was a reconnaissance satellite because that's the only reason to launch from there. So instead they should launch from the Cape. Er... but shouldn't the mission requirements drive the launch site decision? They were never going to launch a photo-reconnaissance satellite from the Cape, because it could not go into polar orbit that way. (And by extension, if they did put it into polar orbit from the Cape--at a major hit to the payload capability--people would still conclude that it was a reconnaissance satellite because of the orbit itself, not the launch site.)
Such "logic" made my brain bleed in pain...
OK ... looks as if it is as I thought ... i.e. both Atlantic and Pacific Missile Ranges (AMR and PMR) were initially considered. Here's an Aerospace Corp presentation on MOL from 17th Jan 1964 which explicitly considers AMR and PMR launches, and notes "use of AMR launch facilities with minimum modification" as part of the programme philosophy. Doc is #9 in the NRO MOL set.
So I guess it was indeed the case that the relevance of ETR disappeared as the mission solidified around KH10/DORIAN to the eventual exclusion of everything else.
[Edit: Intriguingly, wrt another topic from upthread, they were also planning to use Transtage at that point.]
[Edit 2: There's a longer version of the same briefing in document #7, also now attached, this has the speaker notes for the first slide which makes it clear that the AMR launches were at that stage seen as R&D.]
OK ... looks as if it is as I thought ... i.e. both Atlantic and Pacific Missile Ranges (AMR and PMR) were initially considered. Here's an Aerospace Corp presentation on MOL from 17th Jan 1964 which explicitly considers AMR and PMR launches, and notes "use of AMR launch facilities with minimum modification" as part of the programme philosophy. Doc is #9 in the NRO MOL set.
So I guess it was indeed the case that the relevance of ETR disappeared as the mission solidified around KH10/DORIAN to the eventual exclusion of everything else.
[Edit: Intriguingly, wrt another topic from upthread, they were also planning to use Transtage at that point.]
[Edit 2: There's a longer version of the same briefing in document #7, also now attached, this has the speaker notes for the first slide which makes it clear that the AMR launches were at that stage seen as R&D.]
It's probably the kind of thing that is buried in the documents, but I wonder to what extent they thought about test flights to test the human spaceflight systems, as opposed to carrying operational equipment? If in 1964 they thought that they might do a test flight or two that would primarily test the life support and other systems needed to support the astronauts, there's no reason to do that in polar orbit. But as the program moved more towards being operational almost from the first flight, they pushed this stuff together. Test the stuff on the ground extensively and expect it to work right on orbit.
[...]
My point is that the MOL program probably felt the need to get operational quickly, without doing many test flights. And that meant polar orbits and Vandenberg.
Or maybe - maybe - the ETR flights were for non-NRO, non-spysat missions BEFORE the spooks were brought into an USAF program.
We know MOL started in the vaning days of DynaSoar (December 1963) or even earlier, perhaps mid-1962 (from memory); and yet the "familiar" mission of a manned / spysat / NRO only came later.
Early on MOL was to be "USAF space station, period" - but struggled to find a valuable role. And then at some point the NRO & reconnaissance mission kind of wiped out all the others.
In the days BEFORE the NRO and its reconnaissance missions, it made some sense to have MOL flying outside polar orbit: and thus ETR might have been an option for 28.5 or 51 or 57 or 63 degree inclination missions (picking familiar orbital inclinations but could have been any number below 63 degrees).
But nonetheless NRO was involved from the outset, the spooks as you put it didn't just show up in 1965, and if you read the Berger history in either its original or Compendium version you'll see that photo recon was being considered early on as *a* mission, just not *the* mission. There are several memos from McMillan for example in his NRO capacity. And it may be that NRO's role was always more central in reality.
But nonetheless NRO was involved from the outset, the spooks as you put it didn't just show up in 1965, and if you read the Berger history in either its original or Compendium version you'll see that photo recon was being considered early on as *a* mission, just not *the* mission. There are several memos from McMillan for example in his NRO capacity. And it may be that NRO's role was always more central in reality.
I have not read through all that material,
but an interesting question would be why all the other experiments were deleted from MOL and the focus became solely the high-resolution mission. Was it:
-there just is not enough room/time/expendables to do anything else
or
-they did not want to mix anything else with the high-priority operational reconnaissance mission
Something that would be neat to model (and I don't have the ability to do it) is just how busy the astronauts would be with the operational reconnaissance mission. They would be able to sleep when the Soviet Union was mostly in darkness. But I get the sense that they would be really busy in general. There may simply have been no ability to do anything else during the mission.
I shouldn't have given the impression that I have, as all I've done is skim Berger and browse the large collection of pdfs that accompanied its rereleased version - the MOL Compendium. I think that the recent short history by Courtney Homer of NRO's CSNR adds something though, attached below, although I'm sure it appeared upthread, see especially chapter 1.
I've attached a few grabs below, first is further to my comment that NRO were involved from the outset, at least from late 1963 if not before, it shows McMillan's concerns about programme's emphasis, but also notes that NRO had been sponsoring Eastman Kodak research on manned vs unmanned imagery from December 1963.
I shouldn't have given the impression that I have, as all I've done is skim Berger and browse the large collection of pdfs that accompanied its rereleased version - the MOL Compendium. I think that the recent short history by Courtney Homer of NRO's CSNR adds something though, attached below, although I'm sure it appeared upthread, see especially chapter 1.
I've attached a few grabs below, first is further to my comment that NRO were involved from the outset, at least from late 1963 if not before, it shows McMillan's concerns about programme's emphasis, but also notes that NRO had been sponsoring Eastman Kodak research on manned vs unmanned imagery from December 1963.
It is possible that one issue was the size of any reconnaissance camera that was carried. Once they settled on such a large system, it limited all the other resources like mass, power, etc. They probably could have only kept the reconnaissance mission in their trade space for a limited time before they had to make a decision yes or no.
I think that must be true. If you look at the early 1964 Aerospace briefing charts, document 7 in the MOL set, uploaded above, the camera is still quite small and part of a collection of recon experiments.
I think that must be true. If you look at the early 1964 Aerospace briefing charts, document 7 in the MOL set, uploaded above, the camera is still quite small and part of a collection of recon experiments.
Thanks for reminding me of that one. I have a vague memory of seeing it before.
Looking at it now, it looks like a combination of a CORONA camera and then a long focal length IR camera. If you assume that the IR camera runs much of the diameter of the Titan core stage, that's a long focal length. But at that time, IR was still rather primitive. I doubt that a long focal length is what you'd want for IR. Probably better to start out with something more modest. Plus, it's IR, so there would be issues with keeping it cold.
Some kind of supercold / superfluid helium dewar: not really astronaut-friendly onboard a cramped space station...
Probably better to start out with something more modest. Plus, it's IR, so there would be issues with keeping it cold.Depends on the kind of IR they were looking for. Cooling is needed for LWIR (long-wave) and low-brightness MWIR (mid-wave), but neither of those are readily capture don film. nIR (near-infra-red), and particularly multispectral nIR, is very useful for surface composition classification, and is something that can be done with film - like the much-vaunted Aerochrome 'colour infra-red'. That gives you the capability to image thigs that are optically similar in colour with much higher discrimination, such as mapping vegetation types and archaeological sites, or potentially identifying camouflaged objects (that mimic optical wavelengths but not nIR). SO-130 (later sold as first gen Aerochrome) 'colour infra-red' was definitely used at least on Gambit and Hexagon.
It is possible that one issue was the size of any reconnaissance camera that was carried. Once they settled on such a large system, it limited all the other resources like mass, power, etc. They probably could have only kept the reconnaissance mission in their trade space for a limited time before they had to make a decision yes or no.
Somewhere in those documents (I just recently saw it) is a document about joint use of imagery and SIGINT on MOL. In other words, being able to detect any signals coming from the area where the camera was pointed.We talked briefly about that upthread https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2299879#msg2299879
And then there was the DONKEY payload that was scheduled for MOL and then pulled off and flown as an attached payload on a dedicated SIGINT mission.
But yeah, MOL started out as experimental, with many possible payloads, then it was made less experimental and more "operational" (meaning serving some clearly defined requirements). And then it became solely photo-reconnaissance. The narrowing happened for a bunch of different reasons (I think DONKEY was eliminated because of schedule--it could fly sooner on another satellite).
If I'm learning anything about MOL, it's that its history was complex, so all my thoughts should be flagged as inexpert and taken with a pinch of salt.Somewhere in those documents (I just recently saw it) is a document about joint use of imagery and SIGINT on MOL. In other words, being able to detect any signals coming from the area where the camera was pointed.We talked briefly about that upthread https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2299879#msg2299879
Timing is interesting because quite late on, '66 or so, and may have been a precursor/inspiration for the combined SIGINT/IR sensor on JUMPSEAT ?
If I'm learning anything about MOL, it's that its history was complex, so all my thoughts should be flagged as inexpert and taken with a pinch of salt.Somewhere in those documents (I just recently saw it) is a document about joint use of imagery and SIGINT on MOL. In other words, being able to detect any signals coming from the area where the camera was pointed.We talked briefly about that upthread https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2299879#msg2299879
Timing is interesting because quite late on, '66 or so, and may have been a precursor/inspiration for the combined SIGINT/IR sensor on JUMPSEAT ?
That was around the time of the special review on ABM signals intelligence collection (I could look it up in one of my articles, but I believe it was around November 1966?). I'm guessing that they were thinking of pointing MOL in the direction of known or suspected ABM sites and seeing (listening) if they could detect any signals from there.
Ultimately, part of the solution was to fly more P-11 satellites, as well as some other efforts, such as JUMPSEAT.
This leaves the question of what happened to the equipment and facilities at Eastman Kodak?
A comparison of two photographs, taken half a century apart, is quite telling. The chambers put in place in the late 1960s for the production and testing of the DORIAN camera system were still in place and maintained 50 years later.
The 2019 photograph is included in John H. Shafer’s recent book Gambit, Gambit Cubed & Dorian. Shafer writes “When the MOL Program was cancelled in 1969, it was felt that larger optics would be possible in the near future. Any programs with larger optics would still be classified, with the exception of the backup mirror for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was successfully fabricated in these facilities.”
Other views of the EK/L3HARRIS facilities were released by NASA in 2016. One photo shows one of the AFTA/WFIRST/Roman Space Telescope primary mirrors in front of Chamber 1g. Other views show the optical assembly still with its original two-part shutter, and the primary mirror in one of the vertical test stands.
Purcell panel was December 1966, you wrote about it here: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3066/1 By December 1966, a group of senior scientific intelligence advisors to the government met to discuss SIGINT issues. According to a letter by the two senior advisors, Edwin Land and Edward Purcell, “the Panel spent considerable time discussing systems which might meet the urgent requirement to determine the characteristics of the Soviet ABM systems. We believe that the Panel in general would agree that the decisions that would be influenced by the information gathered about these defenses are of such magnitude that we ought not be satisfied with any collection system [deleted more than 25 lines of text].” Land and Purcell were both highly-respected advisers to the government, and although their recommendations remain classified to this day, they would have been taken seriously at the time.
There is a memo from Carter of NSA to Flax at NRO dated 27th October 1966 [#308 in MOL set] that replies in a positive way about the Electromagnetic Pointing System that NRO has just been studying. NSA then spells out why they are interested, seems to me less as a "spotter" for the photo system than as a "corroboration". Because the odds of detection are low they favour use in an automatic mode, which may not have been exactly helpful to MOL's cause.
Intriguingly Carter listed as an appendix a bunch of radars "for which few or no signals have been intercepted", see beginnning of list here:
Purcell panel was December 1966, you wrote about it here: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3066/1 By December 1966, a group of senior scientific intelligence advisors to the government met to discuss SIGINT issues. According to a letter by the two senior advisors, Edwin Land and Edward Purcell, “the Panel spent considerable time discussing systems which might meet the urgent requirement to determine the characteristics of the Soviet ABM systems. We believe that the Panel in general would agree that the decisions that would be influenced by the information gathered about these defenses are of such magnitude that we ought not be satisfied with any collection system [deleted more than 25 lines of text].” Land and Purcell were both highly-respected advisers to the government, and although their recommendations remain classified to this day, they would have been taken seriously at the time.
There is a memo from Carter of NSA to Flax at NRO dated 27th October 1966 [#308 in MOL set] that replies in a positive way about the Electromagnetic Pointing System that NRO has just been studying. NSA then spells out why they are interested, seems to me less as a "spotter" for the photo system than as a "corroboration". Because the odds of detection are low they favour use in an automatic mode, which may not have been exactly helpful to MOL's cause.
Intriguingly Carter listed as an appendix a bunch of radars "for which few or no signals have been intercepted", see beginnning of list here:
I need to go look at my notes, but I thought that a guy named Harry Davis ran a special committee on SIGINT.
[...]
Update from my notes:
"There was increasing concern in the summer of 1966 that ABM installation emissions were not being detected by the SIGINT satellites. The President’s Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC) asked DNRO Alexander Flax to create a committee to investigate. Flax appointed a member of his staff, Harry Davis, who had previously been director of the Rome Air Development Center (RADC) in Rome, New York, to chair the committee. In December 1966 the committee was briefed by Charlie Jarrett and Daymond Speece of The Aerospace Corporation, who showed the committee data that indicated that if the ABM radars were active and radiating, a combination of P-11 satellites would intercept the signals. Based upon the committee’s conclusions, DNRO Flax approved and expedited the P-11 program with a first launch of a new ABM satellite known as FAÇADE in only nine months time. More satellites followed, and by 1970 these satellites along with the POPPY and STRAWMAN satellites “had identified all of the ABM radar installations.”
---“The SIGINT Satellite Story,” pp. 152-153.
I have a hard time understanding how a linked, automatic system would work. SIGINT geolocation accuracy was low, on the order of many miles. So the system detects a signal, but the camera really has a very large area to capture. A high-resolution camera like MOL/DORIAN has a small field of view (I think I wrote about the MOL field of view somewhere, but cannot remember it offhand. It was smaller than even the GAMBIT-1--and I think--the GAMBIT-3 field of view.) So it strikes me that most of the time the camera is not going to be pointed at the emitter location.
I have a hard time understanding how a linked, automatic system would work. SIGINT geolocation accuracy was low, on the order of many miles. So the system detects a signal, but the camera really has a very large area to capture. A high-resolution camera like MOL/DORIAN has a small field of view (I think I wrote about the MOL field of view somewhere, but cannot remember it offhand. It was smaller than even the GAMBIT-1--and I think--the GAMBIT-3 field of view.) So it strikes me that most of the time the camera is not going to be pointed at the emitter location.
The main DORIAN camera had a field of view of a 9,000-foot (2,740-meter) diameter circle on the ground from 80 nautical miles (148 kilometers) altitude. This 9,000-foot diameter circle was not very big compared to the size of some of the targets the intelligence community was interested in, such as airfields, missile ranges, and shipyards, and objects would move in and out of the circle relatively quickly as the spacecraft traveled overhead. Decades later, it was common for intelligence analysts and military commanders to compare using high-resolution reconnaissance satellites to peering at the world through a soda straw. The MOL astronauts would do most of their searching for targets of opportunity using the tracking and acquisition telescopes—sort of like looking at the world through a paper towel tube in order to point the soda straw at the correct target. In the lower magnification setting, the tracking and acquisition scopes had a circular field of view on the ground of about 6.5 nautical miles (12 kilometers) in diameter with a resolution of about 30 feet (9.1 meters). In the upper magnification range, the scope field of view would be approximately 4,200 feet (1,280 meters), about half the MOL camera’s field of view, and the resolution would be about 3.5 feet (1.1 meters).
The GAMBIT-1 had a 10-nautical-mile (18.5-kilometer) swath width, whereas the GAMBIT-3’s more powerful camera was half that.
QuoteA high-resolution camera like MOL/DORIAN has a small field of view (I think I wrote about the MOL field of view somewhere, but cannot remember it offhand. It was smaller than even the GAMBIT-1--and I think--the GAMBIT-3 field of view.) .
Right here.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3461/1QuoteThe main DORIAN camera had a field of view of a 9,000-foot (2,740-meter) diameter circle on the ground from 80 nautical miles (148 kilometers) altitude. This 9,000-foot diameter circle was not very big compared to the size of some of the targets the intelligence community was interested in, such as airfields, missile ranges, and shipyards, and objects would move in and out of the circle relatively quickly as the spacecraft traveled overhead. Decades later, it was common for intelligence analysts and military commanders to compare using high-resolution reconnaissance satellites to peering at the world through a soda straw. The MOL astronauts would do most of their searching for targets of opportunity using the tracking and acquisition telescopes—sort of like looking at the world through a paper towel tube in order to point the soda straw at the correct target. In the lower magnification setting, the tracking and acquisition scopes had a circular field of view on the ground of about 6.5 nautical miles (12 kilometers) in diameter with a resolution of about 30 feet (9.1 meters). In the upper magnification range, the scope field of view would be approximately 4,200 feet (1,280 meters), about half the MOL camera’s field of view, and the resolution would be about 3.5 feet (1.1 meters).
Right here.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3461/1
One aspect of the MOL system that remains classified is its ability to photograph other spacecraft in orbit. Almost two pages of the report are deleted and presumably discussed this capability. This was a capability that the intelligence community euphemistically began referring to as “sat-squared,” or “S2,” and was later developed for GAMBIT and used to photograph targets such as the damaged Skylab and the Soviet equivalent to MOL, known as Almaz and operated in the 1970s.
A bunch of MOL illustrations, including the spotting scope.
A bunch of MOL illustrations, including the spotting scope.
Great stuff. What era are the last two from ? I like the "exploratory bug", which sounds like something Major Matt Mason might use ...
A bunch of MOL illustrations, including the spotting scope.
Great stuff. What era are the last two from ? I like the "exploratory bug", which sounds like something Major Matt Mason might use ...
Those were all part of a release of MOL graphics that were separate from documents. They were released in 2014, before the major declassification. I assume that they are spread throughout the 2015 document collection. I also assume that those two are from around 1965, before MOL became mostly the photo-reconnaissance mission.
I have a hard time understanding how a linked, automatic system would work. SIGINT geolocation accuracy was low, on the order of many miles. So the system detects a signal, but the camera really has a very large area to capture. A high-resolution camera like MOL/DORIAN has a small field of view... So it strikes me that most of the time the camera is not going to be pointed at the emitter location.
Reading that, I still don't understand it. But it got removed, which may indicate that they concluded it would not work, or would not be useful.
I can also imagine that this might have been too complicated even if it had worked. The astronauts were going to be busy pointing and shooting. Having to manage a second system while doing that might have over-extended the astronauts.
Catching up with the above posts. Ok, so the plan was to quite literally connect ELINT / SIGINT and optical reconnaissance.
- SIGINT sensor hears an interesting Soviet radar signal
- the camera is "slaved" to the SIGINT sensor
- so it pivots and try snatching some pictures of the said radar
Catching up with the above posts. Ok, so the plan was to quite literally connect ELINT / SIGINT and optical reconnaissance.
- SIGINT sensor hears an interesting Soviet radar signal
- the camera is "slaved" to the SIGINT sensor
- so it pivots and try snatching some pictures of the said radar
That sounds like a great scene from a film ... but it doesn't seem to have been quite as direct as that. This is part of something I posted upthread [doc #228, "capabilities of the MOL system", from Spring 1966].
The shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres (56 mi) east–west by 85 kilometres (53 mi) north–south, with the cosmodrome at the centre.
Wikipedia has this to say about Baikonur size and shapeQuoteThe shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres (56 mi) east–west by 85 kilometres (53 mi) north–south, with the cosmodrome at the centre.
At a speed of 8 km per 1 second, very best case is 11 seconds spent over the target. Except of course the cosmodrome is not spread over the entire ellipse but concentrated in a big single spot right in the middle, so perhaps 1 or 2 seconds at best.
Wikipedia has this to say about Baikonur size and shapeQuoteThe shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres (56 mi) east–west by 85 kilometres (53 mi) north–south, with the cosmodrome at the centre.
At a speed of 8 km per 1 second, very best case is 11 seconds spent over the target. Except of course the cosmodrome is not spread over the entire ellipse but concentrated in a big single spot right in the middle, so perhaps 1 or 2 seconds at best.
And this graphic gives you an idea of the MOL field of view. It could really only photograph one launch pad at a time. Given that it took some time to move the camera, they were probably only going to be able to photograph a handful of launch pads during a pass. I would say that would require choosing wisely, but I'm not sure that would be the case--you'd have to get lucky to photograph a pad where something was happening.
I wonder how they read to you, but to me these grabs from Doc # 264 seem to suggest that MOL would snap away automatically, but the crew would be looking ahead to see if something more interesting turned up ...
More seriously
Did the MOL had kind of two separate imaging systems ?
a) the main big camera working as described above thread: pre-programed targets with the automated system - with a crew watching it
b) the ATS tracking scope own capabilities
That one always confuses me. I've red somewhere it had its own ground resolution - "good enough" but a far cry from 4-inch. More like 10 feet (from memory).
So,
- one crew would manages the main big camera just in case "Otto" goes nuts,
- the other would hunt targets with the ATS ?
I also wonder if the ATS could be "slaved" to the main camera and thus - one crew see a target of opportunity but feels the ATS 10 ft is too low, he wants the main camera 4-inch: and thus he overrides the automatics, slaves the main camera to the ATS, and gets his high-res pictures ?
Could they do that ? Any time to do that ?
More seriously
Did the MOL had kind of two separate imaging systems ?
a) the main big camera working as described above thread: pre-programed targets with the automated system - with a crew watching it
b) the ATS tracking scope own capabilities
That one always confuses me. I've red somewhere it had its own ground resolution - "good enough" but a far cry from 4-inch. More like 10 feet (from memory).
What mitigations would have the Air Force done to the Gemini capsule following the fire of Apollo 1?
...
I know they were planning an Oxygen-helium atmosphere, but would have they still used ejection seats or moved to a LES?
What mitigations would have the Air Force done to the Gemini capsule following the fire of Apollo 1? According to Tom Stafford's Oral History -
https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/StaffordTP/StaffordTP_10-15-97.htm
- he stated that ejecting during the Gemini 6 launch abort would have been fatal.
(Edited Quote) We would have been two Roman candles going out, because we were 15 or 16 psi, pure oxygen, soaking in that for an hour and a half. Jesus, with that fire going off and that, it would have burned the suits. Everything was soaked in oxygen. So thank God. That was another thing: NASA never tested it under the conditions that they would have had if they would have had to eject. They did have some tests at China Lake where they had a simulated mock-up of Gemini capsule, but what they did is fill it full of nitrogen. They didn't have it filled full of oxygen in the sled test they had.
I know they were planning an Oxygen-helium atmosphere, but would have they still used ejection seats or moved to a LES?
- he stated that ejecting during the Gemini 6 launch abort would have been fatal.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4448/1In the early 1960s, the US was building up the "Nuclear Navy". McNamara might have seen the AF space flight proposals as an attempt by Schriever (and possibly LeMay, who wasn't all in favor of the Nuclear triad) to channel funds away from the the other two "legs" of the triad to the AF.
A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 12, 2022
<snip>
McNamara’s actions remain puzzling. (...) At the time the entire Department of Defense space budget was $1.55 billion, and the Air Force had asked for a substantial increase of $420 million, including $75 million for MODS and $102 million for Blue Gemini. That was a lot of money.
<snip>
https://thespacereview.com/article/4448/1In the early 1960s, the US was building up the "Nuclear Navy".
A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 12, 2022
<snip>
McNamara’s actions remain puzzling. (...) At the time the entire Department of Defense space budget was $1.55 billion, and the Air Force had asked for a substantial increase of $420 million, including $75 million for MODS and $102 million for Blue Gemini. That was a lot of money.
<snip>
McNamara might have seen the AF space flight proposals as an attempt by Schriever (and possibly LeMay, who wasn't all in favor of the Nuclear triad) to channel funds away from the the other two "legs" of the triad to the AF.
Also, McNamara's relation to the AF leadership became "strained" during the Cuban missile crisis.
Quote from his Oral History Interview with Schlesinger on 4/4/1964: "At the same time, the Polaris program was speeded up. The original fiscal 1962 budget proposed by the Eisenhower Administration had provided for only five Polaris submarines. President Kennedy doubled the number of Polaris submarines in both the 1961 and 1962 budgets from a total of ten to a total of twenty. And, furthermore, the Minuteman program was accelerated by President Kennedy's supplements to the fiscal 1962 budget and was expanded from a total of four hundred missiles to a total of six hundred missiles – this number to be in place by the summer of 1964. And, by the way, we will actually exceed that schedule."
https://thespacereview.com/article/4448/1
A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 12, 2022
In 1958, [snip]
p123, f[339] For a description of the Blue Gemini programme, see Barton C. Grimwood James M. Hacker, On the Shoulders of Titans: a History of Project Gemini (NASA SP-4203) (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information Division, Office of Technology Utilization, 1978) Ch6-2
p158 [163] Stares, Militarization of Space.115-16. SeealsoGeraldM.Steinberg,Satellite Reconnaissance: The Role of Informal Bargaining (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1983), 83-85. The reoriented SAINT program (program 706) was a study program only. The Air Force, noting that ASAT requirements were increasing, planned to use the Blue Gemini and the Manned Orbital Development Station (MODS) programs to test manned ASAT techniques. Steinberg’s interviews with former Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric, former Air Force Secretary Eugene M. Zuckert, and retired General Schriever indicate that McNamara personally canceled the SAINT program, primarily due to his fears of an action-reaction space-based ASAT race.
p219 as well as [274] Stares, Militarization of Space. 79. DoD eliminated the Blue Gemini and Military Orbital Development System (MODS) programs from the Air Force budget in January 1963. The NASA-DoD experiment program was officially titled Program 631A, "DOD Gemini Experiments Program," and called for 18 experiments to be run on Gemini flights between October 1964 and April 1967 for a cost of $16 million. The experiments were programmed for areas such as satellite inspection, reconnaissance, satellite defense, and astronaut extravehicular activity. Colonel Daniel D. McKee, "The Gemini Program," Air University Review 16 (May-June 1965): 6-15; and Cantwell, "AF in Space, FY 64,"
31-36; microfiche document 00330 in Military Uses of Space.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4448/1
A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 12, 2022
In 1958, [snip]
Nice work. In case it is useful, two more references below. I did not see these mentioned in your references on TSR. I have not read them in person yet.
1) Bernard Schriever and Early US Military Spaceflight
Wing Commander Gerry Doyle RAF
Oct 2016 https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/71366/Quotep123, f[339] For a description of the Blue Gemini programme, see Barton C. Grimwood James M. Hacker, On the Shoulders of Titans: a History of Project Gemini (NASA SP-4203) (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information Division, Office of Technology Utilization, 1978) Ch6-2
https://thespacereview.com/article/4448/1
A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 12, 2022
In 1958, [snip]
Nice work. In case it is useful, two more references below. I did not see these mentioned in your references on TSR. I have not read them in person yet.
1) Bernard Schriever and Early US Military Spaceflight
Wing Commander Gerry Doyle RAF
Oct 2016 https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/71366/Quotep123, f[339] For a description of the Blue Gemini programme, see Barton C. Grimwood James M. Hacker, On the Shoulders of Titans: a History of Project Gemini (NASA SP-4203) (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information Division, Office of Technology Utilization, 1978) Ch6-2
As per this post https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=55159.msg2317781#msg2317781 I'd concur re the interest of the Doyle thesis which really looks worthy of a proper read. I scanned it briefly in hope that he'd found a Schriever equivalent of the Kamanin diaries but I don't think so.
Yep, the "Moonbase" thread where you mentioned Doyle's thesis lead to me reading the whole thesis during the holidays. Thank you for that reference.
While I am not aware of a Schriever version of "diaries", there is a lot of material on him at the Library of Congress which is used by Doyle as well. With some MOL links as well. Happy reading.
The Schriever Archive at the Library of Congress, Bernard A Schriever papers, 1931-2005
https://lccn.loc.gov/mm2005085217
They were probably too few MOL missions planned (2 unmanned, 4 manned, and then some were cut - so even less) to think about refurbishing capsules.
Somewhere upthread The Jim and Blackstar answered that question.
Somewhere upthread The Jim and Blackstar answered that question.
Well it was in a different thread. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26906.60
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26906.msg812764#msg812764
Somewhere upthread The Jim and Blackstar answered that question.
Funny: this past week, "The Jim" and Blackstar were hanging out at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Except that there, he is known only as "Jim."
Somewhere upthread The Jim and Blackstar answered that question.
Funny: this past week, "The Jim" and Blackstar were hanging out at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Except that there, he is known only as "Jim."
You are speaking of you in third person, like Julius Cesar or Alain Delon ? :o
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=426060826378947&set=a.164921892492843
National Reconnaissance Office
·
#OTD in 2015, NRO declassified its connection to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). While the public knew MOL as a USAF project to test the military usefulness of putting someone in space, its real mission was to launch a manned surveillance satellite into orbit.
Coming soon, #MOLMonday! Mark your calendars every Monday to learn more about this once highly-classified program.
Somewhere upthread The Jim and Blackstar answered that question.
Well it was in a different thread. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26906.60
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26906.msg812764#msg812764
CDR happens before a spacecraft is built. So they held a meeting to discuss hardware that was not built, and then a few months later the program was canceled.
The MOL document collection includes documents listing leftover hardware that might be used by NASA. There are no Gemini spacecraft listed there. They were not built.
Somewhere upthread The Jim and Blackstar answered that question.
Funny: this past week, "The Jim" and Blackstar were hanging out at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Except that there, he is known only as "Jim."
You are speaking of you in third person, like Julius Cesar or Alain Delon ? :o
No, "Blackstar" is one of my many secret identities. I'm actually Batman.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=426060826378947&set=a.164921892492843
National Reconnaissance Office
·
#OTD in 2015, NRO declassified its connection to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). While the public knew MOL as a USAF project to test the military usefulness of putting someone in space, its real mission was to launch a manned surveillance satellite into orbit.
Coming soon, #MOLMonday! Mark your calendars every Monday to learn more about this once highly-classified program.
Great stuff. Does that make today #SIGINTSunday or am I just wishful thinking ;-)
Love your pic ... the MOL astro seems to be on the way to sort out HAL once and for all ...
National Reconnaissance Office
#OTD in 2015, NRO declassified its connection to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL).
And so, if I understand correctly, no new flight-model Gemini Bs were ever built, as the one flown in 66 was a conversion ?
And so, if I understand correctly, no new flight-model Gemini Bs were ever built, as the one flown in 66 was a conversion ?
Yes: it had previously flown as Gemini 2 (http://heroicrelics.org/ksc/gemini-2-mol/).
I believe I have seen it referred to as the first American spacecraft to fly twice, but I would guess that honor might actually belong to one of the Apollo boilerplates, if those count as spacecraft. Gemini 2 might still have been the first to fly twice above the von Kármán Line.
And so, if I understand correctly, no new flight-model Gemini Bs were ever built, as the one flown in 66 was a conversion ?
Yes: it had previously flown as Gemini 2 (http://heroicrelics.org/ksc/gemini-2-mol/).
I believe I have seen it referred to as the first American spacecraft to fly twice, but I would guess that honor might actually belong to one of the Apollo boilerplates, if those count as spacecraft. Gemini 2 might still have been the first to fly twice above the von Kármán Line.
Also in contention would be the Zenit (and later Yantar) photoreconnaissance satellites, which were recovered wholesale for reuse. Not manned vehicles, though they were internally pressurised and environmentally controlled to support the camera hardware and electronics.And so, if I understand correctly, no new flight-model Gemini Bs were ever built, as the one flown in 66 was a conversion ?
Yes: it had previously flown as Gemini 2 (http://heroicrelics.org/ksc/gemini-2-mol/).
I believe I have seen it referred to as the first American spacecraft to fly twice, but I would guess that honor might actually belong to one of the Apollo boilerplates, if those count as spacecraft. Gemini 2 might still have been the first to fly twice above the von Kármán Line.
No, X-15 was
I believe I have seen it referred to as the first American spacecraft to fly twice, but I would guess that honor might actually belong to one of the Apollo boilerplates, if those count as spacecraft. Gemini 2 might still have been the first to fly twice above the von Kármán Line.
No, X-15 was
Flights 90 and 91.I believe I have seen it referred to as the first American spacecraft to fly twice, but I would guess that honor might actually belong to one of the Apollo boilerplates, if those count as spacecraft. Gemini 2 might still have been the first to fly twice above the von Kármán Line.
No, X-15 was
A few X-15 flights exceeded 50 miles' altitude, but did any exceed 100 km?
Also in contention would be the Zenit (and later Yantar) photoreconnaissance satellites, which were recovered wholesale for reuse. Not manned vehicles, though they were internally pressurised and environmentally controlled to support the camera hardware and electronics.
Also in contention would be the Zenit (and later Yantar) photoreconnaissance satellites, which were recovered wholesale for reuse. Not manned vehicles, though they were internally pressurised and environmentally controlled to support the camera hardware and electronics.
Camera systems were recovered, but the satellite buses were discarded. It would be interesting to know how often the cameras were reflown. You can only shake precision optics around so much before they fail to be precision anymore.
Back to the earlier question, I have seen no evidence of proposed Gemini reuse, and don't know why it would be desirable. I vaguely remember that one of the MOL documents lists the procurement dates for Gemini capsules. I think that there were 4 in the initial batch, although it might have been as many as 6.
I believe I have seen it referred to as the first American spacecraft to fly twice, but I would guess that honor might actually belong to one of the Apollo boilerplates, if those count as spacecraft. Gemini 2 might still have been the first to fly twice above the von Kármán Line.
No, X-15 was
I'm also struck by reference to crisis reconnaissance, which seems to have been a part of the MOL story somehow-see e.g. comments of NRO historian James Outzen in the preface to Courtney Homer's book, [grab attached]. Is there a good source on crisis reconnaisance and MOL or is it scattered all over the MOL and EOI doc sets ?
OK, so the problems with the spysats of the day were that:- 1. They wasted a lot of film on clouds, and
- 2. It took while to get exposed film down to the ground, developed and in front of analysts.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
OK, so the problems with the spysats of the day were that:- 1. They wasted a lot of film on clouds, and
- 2. It took while to get exposed film down to the ground, developed and in front of analysts.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
OK, so the problems with the spysats of the day were that:- 1. They wasted a lot of film on clouds, and
- 2. It took while to get exposed film down to the ground, developed and in front of analysts.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
1. the NRO and the US military (plus NASA) all had weather satellites, including optical ones
2. That was Film ReadOut GAMBIT - FROG - with a laser scan replacing the analog flying spot scanner.
A ground prototype was ready early 1967 but they lost too much time and it became too different from GAMBIT-3 - until, in 1971, Din Land future KH-11 - with CCDs - ate it for lunch.
OK, so the problems with the spysats of the day were that:- 1. They wasted a lot of film on clouds, and
- 2. It took while to get exposed film down to the ground, developed and in front of analysts.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:Welcome to a many decades old argument over read-out satellites, dating back to before film-return satellites were first launched.- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
OK, so the problems with the spysats of the day were that:- 1. They wasted a lot of film on clouds, and
- 2. It took while to get exposed film down to the ground, developed and in front of analysts.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
1. the NRO and the US military (plus NASA) all had weather satellites, including optical ones
2. That was Film ReadOut GAMBIT - FROG - with a laser scan replacing the analog flying spot scanner.
A ground prototype was ready early 1967 but they lost too much time and it became too different from GAMBIT-3 - until, in 1971, Din Land future KH-11 - with CCDs - ate it for lunch.OK, so the problems with the spysats of the day were that:- 1. They wasted a lot of film on clouds, and
- 2. It took while to get exposed film down to the ground, developed and in front of analysts.
Might not a much cheaper solution than MOL have been to develop an unmanned spysat that carried:- 1. A real-time video camera with resolution just good enough to see clouds, and
- 2. An improved Lunar Orbiter-style on-board darkroom and high-resolution read-out system.
Just a thought, the film developer/scanner/transmitter for Lunar Orbiter was intended for resolutions of 100 meters, perhaps the tech wasn't developed enough to resolve down to the 4 inches that MOL was designed for?
I can't remember the source but they did examine a Bimat system after SAMOS and after Lunar Orbiter - and before FROG in 1966-67.
The numbers are out somewhere on this forum.
My point though was really about whether there is a qualitative difference between crisis recon specifically and real time recon more generally ? I am prompted by the fact that NRO's own historian was referring this specifically as a motivation for MOL. I wonder if it was orignally a selling point for the "satelloid" X-20, and hung over into MOL even though arguably less plausible for a satellite with as stated above a 12h revisit time.
What benefits might human presence provide? A contemporary list simultaneously contrasted perceived benefits of human presence versus robotic spacecraft technological shortfalls. Since human presence counteracted robotic spacecraft shortfalls, the list was considered a standard against which to measure military space progress in the 1950s:
Decision Making Capability
Robots cannot perform "rapid and accurate decision making ... by 'on the spot' assessment of the situation."
Command Control Capability
Humans understand and react faster than robot computational speeds.
Determination of Vehicle and Payload Status
Humans monitor the spacecraft's status in situ, whereas robots require relay to the ground for processing.
Post-Launch Changes in Mission Plan
Humans perform more flexibly and readily adapt to new missions.
Payload Redundancy
Humans can "augment certain payload functions ... in the event of payload subsystem breakdowns."
Mission Data Redundancy
Remote, unobserved sensors might not report accurately; human presence can verify or deny sensors' reports.
Mission Data Augmentation
Robotic sensors are specialized with limited capacity for recording data. Humans can take inputs from many sources and integrate a complete picture of a situation.
Recovery of On-Board Payload Data
For a spaceplane, the ability to choose a landing site is crucial to returning the mission's data. Pilots routinely do this.
Early Mission Termination and Recovery
Humans can determine when to return or extend the orbit. Robots might suffer, at any time, "mission termination based on on-board programming."
Accomplishment of Mission Details
Humans can adjust sensors to "optimize the gathering of mission data."
Subsystem Complexity
Humans are "a general-purpose subsystem with a general-purpose compute capability to store and analyze events." (5)
These claims about the value of human presence reflected Air Force doctrine drawn from decades of atmospheric flying. Air Force Headquarters personnel, lacking any basis for judgment without actual human spaceflight experience, accepted these claims. Artificial moons might provide important interim capabilities, but as was the case with the robotic aircraft, only human-piloted spaceplanes had operational utility.
Clearly, the bias towards human presence that also anticipated robotic spacecraft would not be very capable was soon overturned as the U.S. devoted considerable resources and its best minds to the space program. The bias, however, is important to consider when judging the initial push for making the X-15, or any piloted vehicle, into an orbital spacecraft.
<snip>
(5.) Murray, Arthur, Man's Role in Dyna-Soar Flight (Seattle, Wash: The Boeing Company, August 1962, declassified 1965), D2-80726; Temple, L. Parker III, Shades of Gray, National Security and the Evolution of the National Reconnaissance Office (Reston, Va: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2005), pp. 135-137. The latter contains a more complete list, explanation and critique of the list.
(5.) Murray, Arthur, Man's Role in Dyna-Soar Flight (Seattle, Wash: The Boeing Company, August 1962, declassified 1965), D2-80726; Temple, L. Parker III, Shades of Gray, National Security and the Evolution of the National Reconnaissance Office (Reston, Va: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2005), pp. 135-137. The latter contains a more complete list, explanation and critique of the list.
Something that I'm still not quite clear on is if later GAMBIT and HEXAGON missions had a light sensor that could indicate if the target was cloud covered and then tell the camera control system not to take a photo. I know that they did have some automatic focus correction. I forget how that worked, but it indicates that there were systems in the cameras to adjust performance in real time.The later GAMBITs and HEXAGONs at least were contemporaneous with early public through-the-lens focal-plane autofocus camera demos (e.g. the Honeywell system, Leica's Correfot), so it's far from impossible that a PDAF sensor was incorporated into the camera system for focus confirmation. The camera's image-circle was larger than the illuminated film slit, so there would be plenty of area to incorporate focus sensors, nIR cloud illumination sensors, etc (IIRC there were already multiple film slits incorporated into some of the cameras already).
I don't want to apply my brain to this too much, but I think that the issue really was about maximizing film use, as opposed to never taking photographs of clouds. They were trying to get as many usable photos as possible, and that meant working on a lot of different things, including weather satellites as well as weather prediction models. See the last of my DMSP articles, which touched on the weather modeling issue a little bit:
https://thespacereview.com/article/4412/1
But no matter what, there would be problems unless the sky was totally clear of clouds. The KH-8 had a swath width of 5 km. The weather satellite flew overhead some hours before the reconnaissance satellite, and even if there were only scattered clouds, they could still obscure important targets. You only need a cloud a kilometer or two wide and it could block the target.
My point though was really about whether there is a qualitative difference between crisis recon specifically and real time recon more generally ? I am prompted by the fact that NRO's own historian was referring this specifically as a motivation for MOL.
What I am really wondering is whether there were still those who saw MOL as a kind of "spotter in orbit" in a crisis.
NRO has started a series "The story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory". Part 1 can be found at https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/News-Articles/Article/3208288/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-one/ (https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/News-Articles/Article/3208288/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-one/)
Story recapitulates (by now) well known facts, though the story being told from the point-of-view of (present-day) NRO staff makes it kind of interesting.
The culminating moment arrived during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The inability to collect timely, reliable, and consistent intelligence in the new nuclear age became apparent. The United States required immediate and on-demand intelligence collection in response to unanticipated events, and MOL was believed to be the answer.
In 1962, Secretary of the Air Force Eugene Zuckert informed General Bernard Schriever to proceed with studies of the MOL program’s viability. These studies began in earnest and the next 20 months were spent refining its design and goals.
NRO has started a series "The story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory". <snip>
Thanks - I'd been meaning to ask if the #MOLMondays had materialised. I'm interested in the statement:QuoteThe culminating moment arrived during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The inability to collect timely, reliable, and consistent intelligence in the new nuclear age became apparent. The United States required immediate and on-demand intelligence collection in response to unanticipated events, and MOL was believed to be the answer.
In 1962, Secretary of the Air Force Eugene Zuckert informed General Bernard Schriever to proceed with studies of the MOL program’s viability. These studies began in earnest and the next 20 months were spent refining its design and goals.
Is there a post-Cuba memo from Zuckert to Schriever ?
<snip>
In this respect the orbital command post study that was included as Doc #794 in the 2015 NRO set, "General Electric Company Briefing Charts, Advanced MOL Planning; Missions and Systems" remains fascinating to me at least, see https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg1439233#msg1439233
As Blackstar has noted it was done after the programme was cancelled, but there are clues-like the reference to 949-that the image may be older than 1969. Is it the tip of an iceberg - or just a sign of hope springing eternal in the contractor community, or what ? It is by the way also striking that it casually refers to high altitude SIGINT, a very tightly held secret at that point.
[Edit: Added a couple more of the relevant pages from this GE doc. Has anyone seen any early pics of a "GEO MOL" ?]
My point though was really about whether there is a qualitative difference between crisis recon specifically and real time recon more generally ? I am prompted by the fact that NRO's own historian was referring this specifically as a motivation for MOL.
What I am really wondering is whether there were still those who saw MOL as a kind of "spotter in orbit" in a crisis.
To explain, I realise of course that by the 68-69 period, and in fact well before (I must do a chronology at some point) the funded mission for MOL had shrunk to a single one, NRO's DORIAN with its high resolution KH-10 camera, which presumably had some sort of plausible justification even though it seems to be quite hard to pin down-and I know Blackstar has tried.
However I remain curious as to what, if anything, its supporters still hoped MOL would lead to. After all Apollo was also seen as a bridge for quite a while, and all sorts of AAP and Post-Apollo studies continued quite late in the day (see e.g. the lunar orbit station studies of iirc 1971 or so).
In this respect the orbital command post study that was included as Doc #794 in the 2015 NRO set, "General Electric Company Briefing Charts, Advanced MOL Planning; Missions and Systems" remains fascinating to me at least, see https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg1439233#msg1439233
NRO has started a series "The story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory". Part 1 can be found at https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/News-Articles/Article/3208288/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-one/ (https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/News-Articles/Article/3208288/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-one/)Part 2 of the saga is out with some details on MOL contractors and "crews".
<snip>
News | Nov. 28, 2022
The story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory – part two
CHANTILLY, VA –
This is continuation of the story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). For the previous segment click here.
President Lyndon Johnson approved the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) in 1965 so development could proceed. MOL was originally planned to have six launches, each with a mission length of 30 days. This was an ambitious goal: 30 days would be the longest any human had spent in space to date. It was only three years earlier in 1962 that John Glenn became the first American to orbit the planet, and when MOL was publicly announced, the NASA Gemini V mission just completed eight days in space.
General Bernard Schriever, who would be director of the program until his retirement in 1966, began work on MOL. Before its official approval in 1965, Requests for Proposals were issued
<snip>
While the crew trained for missions in space and MOL development progressed, trouble was brewing. MOL had a number of critics who didn’t fully believe in its concept, including its unclassified and classified missions. From the onset, critics questioned if another satellite photoreconnaissance program was necessary with doubts coming from the President’s administration to NASA.
Next time, we will jump into concerns and criticism around the MOL program. Come back for part three!
News | Nov. 28, 2022
The story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory – part two
CHANTILLY, VA –
This is continuation of the story of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). For the previous segment click here.
SNIP
Next time, we will jump into concerns and criticism around the MOL program. Come back for part three!
I'm not expecting any deep insights into the "concerns and criticism around the MOL program," but I think there are some aspects of this that have not been uncovered yet. Many years ago I heard that a well-regarded American physicist and science/technology/intelligence advisor, Richard Garwin, had led or participated in a review of MOL that determined that the presence of astronauts would degrade the optics performance substantially. Only recently did I see a CIA document that mentioned that such a study had been performed. We don't have that study.
I vaguely remember being told that there had been two such studies--one in 1967 and another in 1968--that had cast doubt on MOL. I found this notable, because a lot of people involved in MOL said that they were totally surprised when it was canceled in summer 1969. But there had been some high-level criticism of it for several years, plus the delays and cost overruns.
in which Air Force officers would be shot into space ... so that they could guide the delivery of nuclear weapons to their targets, among other purposes. This idiocy was fortunately abandoned.
[* I'm also curious as to where its remaining allies were by 1969, inside or in fact outside NRO-did NRO itself see DORIAN as an asset or a liability ?]to the extent that it says the incoming DNRO, McLucas was against it, and he remembered its supporters as being Secretary of the Air Force Seamans and the Joint Chiefs, i.e. outside NRO.
That very ackward moment when you realize you have mistaken two Richard ultra-smart minds - Garwin and Dawkins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
<snip>
So Garwin it was. Well, he told harsh truths about the MOL - some said he was harsh, others said he was true.
Meanwhile, interested in the confirmation (second grab at https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2437592#msg2437592) of an ocean surveillance role even if experimental for MOL. One
Meanwhile, interested in the confirmation (second grab at https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2437592#msg2437592) of an ocean surveillance role even if experimental for MOL. One
Not much mention in the official history. (Attached--which I have not read.)
Somebody has written about this before:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3818/1
Thanks for the updates. Are the #MOLMondays just on Facebook now ? I can't see 3rd installment on th website ?Website updates with more extensive text and one image each were ~25 days apart. Weekly twitter (and Facebook?) updates have very short text, a different image each time, and link to the most recent "installment" on the website.
Thanks for the updates. Are the #MOLMondays just on Facebook now ? I can't see 3rd installment on th website ?Website updates with more extensive text and one image each were ~25 days apart. Weekly twitter (and Facebook?) updates have very short text, a different image each time, and link to the most recent "installment" on the website.
Don't expect a coherent social media outreach strategy from your secret agencies ;)
Somebody has written about this before:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3818/1
Blacker than blue: the US Navy and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, October 21, 2019
The Navy had an experiment to test: a space-based radar to perform ocean surveillance detecting ships at sea. Starting in 1962 the Navy conducted “extensive preliminary research and analytic efforts towards selecting the sensor and system best suited for, and with greatest expectation of, supporting requirements for world-wide ocean surveillance,” wrote Under Secretary of the Navy Charles F. Baird in a recently-declassified—and blistering—October 1968 memo.
https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/Article/3249852/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-three/
<snip>
The MOL program needed innovation to achieve objectives in brand new fields like software. A primary program objective was using the crew onboard MOL to help select areas to photograph at the optimal time. Crewmembers were expected to evaluate if an area should be photographed and instruct the computer what to do in less than 25 seconds. Thus, a computer program had to be developed to allow inputs on objective priorities and integrate those priorities into the system, in real-time. This would allow the computer to adjust how and when it took images of objectives.
Developing such a computer program was no easy task, but MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success.
Thought the bit about the computer program and the astronaut's role in developing it was interesting ... was this discussed before ? If so it hadn't really registered on me.
https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/Article/3249852/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-three/
This compromise resulted in the MOL program welcoming NASA employees in 1966. While NASA employees would be assigned to the MOL program for the life of the program, developing a cooperative relationship was arduous due the differences between NASA and
Thought the bit about the computer program and the astronaut's role in developing it was interesting ... was this discussed before ? If so it hadn't really registered on me.
Yeah, some guy wrote about it for The Space Review.
Although Truly does not remember much about the actual visit by Vice President Humphrey and the briefing, he said that Humphrey later sent him a signed, personally inscribed photograph. At the time of their visit to NPIC, Macleay and Truly were working on the crew interface for the camera and the small spotting telescopes. “All the switchologies and buttons and such,” he said. They were also developing mission simulators. He had responsibility for Gemini for a while but spent most of his time during the MOL program doing the crew interface task.
Monday's tweet:"The laboratory where MOL crewmembers would be working was 10 feet in diameter, 19 feet long, and 1,000 cubic feet. For comparison, the International Space Station has 13,696 cubic feet of habitable volume."
Monday's tweet:"The laboratory where MOL crewmembers would be working was 10 feet in diameter, 19 feet long, and 1,000 cubic feet. For comparison, the International Space Station has 13,696 cubic feet of habitable volume."
I guess everything is relative, in particular when compared to the 90 cu ft pressure vessel of Gemini, or the 140 cu ft volume of the Soyuz descent module.
Have you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Indeed. I had belatedly added your words re this to my posting, I hadn't realised you'd said: "At the time of their visit to NPIC, Macleay and Truly were working on the crew interface for the camera and the small spotting telescopes. “All the switchologies and buttons and such,” he said. They were also developing mission simulators. He had responsibility for Gemini for a while but spent most of his time during the MOL program doing the crew interface task."Have you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation.
He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/Article/3249852/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-three/
This compromise resulted in the MOL program welcoming NASA employees in 1966. While NASA employees would be assigned to the MOL program for the life of the program, developing a cooperative relationship was arduous due the differences between NASA and
I wonder who those employees were? I interviewed Mike Yarymovych many years ago, and he told me that he was the only NASA person sent to work on MOL. Now he could have meant the only one at a managerial level, but I don't remember seeing any other NASA people mentioned in MOL documents.
Possibly even earlier than KH-11. Once DMSP was available, there was the opportunity to retarget the GAMBITs andHave you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation. He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
I'd not noticed that anywhere-thanks for pointing it out. It would seem best adapted to the KH-11, yes, one imagines it would have kept the Rockwell onboard computer pretty busy.
I'd not noticed that anywhere-thanks for pointing it out. It would seem best adapted to the KH-11, yes, one imagines it would have kept the Rockwell onboard computer pretty busy.
I do not know how, but I can hazard a guess. For the KH-7 and 8, the programming was pre-set for each pass over the Soviet Union. So as the satellite came down over the North Pole, it had in its memory a set of commands to point towards X, turn on camera at specific time, turn off camera, point towards Y, and so on.
I'm guessing with the 11, they may have had some more internal decision making, maybe based upon the reflectivity over the target area. So just before the camera was about to turn on, it may have had a sensor to look and see if the area was brighter than expected, indicating cloud cover, in which case it told the camera to not turn on, and the computer then switched to the secondary target.
Now the 11 also was connected with real time telemetry to the ground, but I doubt that they had people back on the ground doing the same spotting scope work like they were supposed to do on the MOL. I doubt they had that kind of bandwidth.
Possibly even earlier than KH-11. Once DMSP was available, there was the opportunity to retarget the GAMBITs andHave you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation. He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
HEXAGONs, as long as retargeting could be performed fast enough to close the image-weather>downlink>assess>retarget>uplink>imaging-pass loop in time for the retargeting to be useful. Software and interfaces originally designed to assist real-time retargeting would certainly help speed the process up.
Possibly even earlier than KH-11. Once DMSP was available, there was the opportunity to retarget the GAMBITs andHave you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation. He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
HEXAGONs, as long as retargeting could be performed fast enough to close the image-weather>downlink>assess>retarget>uplink>imaging-pass loop in time for the retargeting to be useful. Software and interfaces originally designed to assist real-time retargeting would certainly help speed the process up.
Didn't really need to. It didn't matter much if the target was cloud covered, there was no film to waste. They would just get it on another overhead pass or an off axis pass.
Are there any more details on how they programmed and implemented? Like what type of CPU or hardware? Maybe something like the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) (http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/0-2-Apollo.htm)? Was it done in FORTRAN or Assembler? With punch cards or via a terminal? Was the simulator on the ground different hardware or software compared to the flying system?Have you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation. He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
Are there any more details on how they programmed and implemented? Like what type of CPU or hardware? Maybe something like the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) (http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/0-2-Apollo.htm)? Was it done in FORTRAN or Assembler? With punch cards or via a terminal? Was the simulator on the ground different hardware or software compared to the flying system?Have you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation. He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
Are there any more details on how they programmed and implemented? Like what type of CPU or hardware?
NASA has a history on "computers in space flight". Part 1 is on "Manned Spacecraft Computers", part 2 on "Computers On Board Unmanned Spacecraft": https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html (https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html)Are there any more details on how they programmed and implemented? Like what type of CPU or hardware?
It was an early version of the same computer used on the shuttle. I cannot remember anything specific.
Thanks for the reminder about the MOL Compendium (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/history/csnr/programs/docs/MOL_Compendium_August_2015.pdf). What a resource. It is a long ago since I read it but I will sift through looking for HW/SW clues.Are there any more details on how they programmed and implemented? Like what type of CPU or hardware? Maybe something like the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) (http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/0-2-Apollo.htm)? Was it done in FORTRAN or Assembler? With punch cards or via a terminal? Was the simulator on the ground different hardware or software compared to the flying system?Have you written about their role in that specific aspect of MOL elsewhere? How do you think we should understand their phrasing: "MOL crewmembers Richard Truly and Lachlan Macleay made the concept a reality. Truly and Macleay briefed the Vice President and other officials in 1967 on how they planned to create the program and by 1969, they achieved success" ?
Go look up any article I wrote where I quoted Truly. That's what we discussed--him working on the computer program. They finally had a breakthrough (essentially proving it could work) very shortly before program cancellation. He said that a variation of that program continued in later use. I presume he meant on the KH-11. It was essentially a target prioritization program. It said "Photograph target 1 unless X, Y, Z, and A..., in which case, photograph target 2..." It dynamically reprogrammed the camera system as they flew over the targets.
Short answer as far as I know is there are quite a few pics of the onboard instrument panels scattered through the many hundred MOL docs so far released, some of which were collated in a group of pics that came out a little before the big doc release, and there are specific docs like the attached, #671 in the main MOL release, which is about the testing of TRW's program TSPOOND (Statistical Program of Onboard Decisions). But I fear you'll need to work through the list at the back of the MOL compendium looking for interesting stuff.
Anybody want to apply the equation and enter in the aperture and the altitude and determine what that resolution was?MOL standard orbit might have been ~1.7x higher than for G3 in order to reduce the effect of atmospheric drag (like, e.g. perigee 125nm vs 75 nm). This should result in an effective ground resolution ~2x better than for G3, i.e. around 15 cm under the best possible conditions with Eastman Kodak Type 3404 film?
As I asked about the hardware and software on MOL, here a few observations.NASA has a history on "computers in space flight". Part 1 is on "Manned Spacecraft Computers", part 2 on "Computers On Board Unmanned Spacecraft": https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html (https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part1.html)Are there any more details on how they programmed and implemented? Like what type of CPU or hardware?
It was an early version of the same computer used on the shuttle. I cannot remember anything specific.
https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part2.html (https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Part2.html)
More details can be found in the references to the individual chapters. Rockwell and IBM were prominent supplier for manned space flight. Subcontractors for, e.g., the Mariner Mars 1969 "Central Computer and Sequencer" (CC&S) were Motorola’s Government Electronics Division, Data Science Corporation, and Electronic Memories Inc., with Motorola producing most of the welded cordword (WC) and Integrated Circuit (IC) modules.
MOL might have relied on a similar set of subcontractors as NASA.
The 4 Pi Extended Performance Flight Computer is also known Data Computation Subsystem Group (DCSG). The DCSG consists of following components:
Airborne Digital Computer (ADC)
Laboratory Data,Adapter Unit (LDAU)
Auxiliary Memory Unit (AMU)
Printer Unit Display (DU)
Keyboard Unit (KU)
The ADC is a general purpose digital computer with a flexible data Processing capability and a 24K word memory. Three DCSG's are man rated and qualified for flight.
To the contrary, Skylab and, later, the Shuttle, used "off-the-shelf" IBM 4Pi series processors, though they both needed the addition of a customized I/O system, a simpler and necessarily idiosyncratic component. By using existing computers, NASA avoided the serious problems associated with man-rating a new system encountered during the Apollo program.
The version of the TSPOOND program currently being used resides on the SOFT 11-05 U flight support tape along with the study program TWONDER and its environment. This tape has been copied and delivered to SAMSO and contains the following programs:Unfortunately, the actual FORTRAN listings are not included it seems. However, if one of you has a lead on that tape and actual FORTRAN code that would be cool.
We learn from #768 in September 1969 that MOL planned to use the 4Pi Flight Computer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/4_Pi). Actually, the fancy Extended Performance variant. The 4Pi was based on IBM 360 and used in Skylab (https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch3-2.html) and the Space Shuttle as well. It says in the 768 document
McGill: So that’s what got me over here in June of ’68. Now actually the first project that I worked on people probably don’t remember. But at that time the United States really had two manned space programs, the one everybody knows about where we were heading to the Moon, but the one they’ve forgotten about that was called Manned Orbiting Lab [MOL]. It was an Air Force program.
The first thing I got assigned to—mainly because I was the junior guy on the team, so the junior guy always gets to do all the travel—we were integrating together the systems that were to upgrade the Air Force remote tracking stations and also generally building the first version of what we now call the Blue Cube or the Satellite Test Center [Onizuka Air Force Station, California]. Those were certainly going to be used for a variety of things the Air Force wanted to do in space. But the real driver to upgrade those was the Manned Orbiting Lab.
I stumbled across an interesting assertionI think I've seen that also.
https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/McGillDC/McGillDC_5-22-15.htmQuoteMcGill: So that’s what got me over here in June of ’68. Now actually the first project that I worked on people probably don’t remember. But at that time the United States really had two manned space programs, the one everybody knows about where we were heading to the Moon, but the one they’ve forgotten about that was called Manned Orbiting Lab [MOL]. It was an Air Force program.
The first thing I got assigned to—mainly because I was the junior guy on the team, so the junior guy always gets to do all the travel—we were integrating together the systems that were to upgrade the Air Force remote tracking stations and also generally building the first version of what we now call the Blue Cube or the Satellite Test Center [Onizuka Air Force Station, California]. Those were certainly going to be used for a variety of things the Air Force wanted to do in space. But the real driver to upgrade those was the Manned Orbiting Lab.
Am I misreading that? Were the facilities in the Blue Cube upgraded for the MOL effort?
(And BTW is it correct that those facilities are still being used to control TDRS satellites?)
Am I misreading that? Were the facilities in the Blue Cube upgraded for the MOL effort? (And BTW is it correct that those facilities are still being used to control TDRS satellites?)
Am I misreading that? Were the facilities in the Blue Cube upgraded for the MOL effort? (And BTW is it correct that those facilities are still being used to control TDRS satellites?)
I think that Joe Page II wrote a book on Onizuka Air Force Base (station?) and would have that info there. I don't have that book. However, I seem to remember that the Blue Cube itself was built for MOL. The satellite tracking and control stuff was there as of the early 1960s, but in other buildings, and then they expanded substantially for MOL. When MOL was canceled, other stuff moved into that building. But I could be wrong in all this. I should check with Joe.
Thank you for that, that’s full of fascinating tidbits.
Didn't really need to. It didn't matter much if the target was cloud covered, there was no film to waste. They would just get it on another overhead pass or an off axis pass.
They were still bandwidth-limited.
Gave the scan a bit of a clean.
https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/Article/3284392/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-four/
Once the Nixon Administration entered office in January 1969, the writing was on the wall and renewed calls for the program’s cancellation emerged. This time, the calls came from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director who suggested a review of three large DoD space programs—MOL, Hexagon, and drones—to find areas to save money. This review found MOL to be too expensive and questioned its significance. It was June 10, 1969 when MOL would be officially terminated after four years of development.
https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/Article/3284392/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-four/
Critics hoping to cancel the MOL program argued that while Very High Resolution (VHR) imagery would potentially fill intelligence gaps, the costs to obtain this capability were not believed to be worth it. Adding to this criticism was a 1967 report examining the potential overlap between the MOL and NASA’s Apollo programs. This report confirmed critics’ beliefs that the programs were complementary instead of competitive, and feared that potentially combining the programs, such as using Apollo as a reconnaissance mission, would damage NASA’s image as a peaceful agency. Despite calls to cancel the program, advocates worked tirelessly to keep it alive.
While criticism persisted, MOL personnel argued that VHR imagery would have provided comprehensible evidence for decision-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition, Director of Defense Research and Engineering John Foster advocated that MOL’s costs were justified by the program’s flexibility and ability to obtain VHR imagery. The Air Force still was not willing to cancel the program altogether but did cut it’s funding in FY 1968 and FY 1969, causing MOL’s launch schedule to slip further and further. Eventually, MOL crewmembers began to leave the program. The first to leave were crewmembers selected in the first group, Michael Adams in 1966 followed by John Finley in 1968. It was taking too long for the program to show its worth, and as a new administration came into office, it would only make it harder to keep it going.
https://www.nro.gov/News-and-Media/Article/3284392/the-story-of-the-manned-orbiting-laboratory-part-four/Oof. This is overly simplistic and leaves so much out that it's just wrong.
Once the Nixon Administration entered office in January 1969, the writing was on the wall and renewed calls for the program’s cancellation emerged. This time, the calls came from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director who suggested a review of three large DoD space programs—MOL, Hexagon, and drones—to find areas to save money. This review found MOL to be too expensive and questioned its significance. It was June 10, 1969 when MOL would be officially terminated after four years of development.
In its entirety, MOL served quietly and secretly as a way to honor President Kennedy’s 1962 call to achieve the impossible. It was decided to undertake the Manned Orbiting Laboratory not because it was easy, but because it was hard.
I also wince a bit when I readQuoteIn its entirety, MOL served quietly and secretly as a way to honor President Kennedy’s 1962 call to achieve the impossible. It was decided to undertake the Manned Orbiting Laboratory not because it was easy, but because it was hard.
I also wince a bit when I readQuoteIn its entirety, MOL served quietly and secretly as a way to honor President Kennedy’s 1962 call to achieve the impossible. It was decided to undertake the Manned Orbiting Laboratory not because it was easy, but because it was hard.
That's what convinced me this was written by a summer intern. A trained historian would not write this.
While criticism persisted, MOL personnel argued that VHR imagery would have provided comprehensible evidence for decision-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
QuoteWhile criticism persisted, MOL personnel argued that VHR imagery would have provided comprehensible evidence for decision-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Does anyone recall seeing this in a doc somewhere ?
QuoteWhile criticism persisted, MOL personnel argued that VHR imagery would have provided comprehensible evidence for decision-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Does anyone recall seeing this in a doc somewhere ?
Yes, I saw it in a doc about VHR. It was about the value of the low-altitude reconnaissance flights during the Missile Crisis vs. the U-2 imagery. The low-altitude images revealed important details missing from the U-2 imagery. I forget what they were (if they were even mentioned in that document), but there is supporting evidence in places like Brugioni's Cuban Missile Crisis book.
So far all we have is anecdotal evidence about the value of VHR. I don't know of a still-classified comprehensive study about what VHR provides.
Update: Found it:
Robert Perry “Recce Satellite R&D: Capabilities in Readout, Crisis Reconnaissance and Very High Resolution"
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/docs/hosr/hosr-vol4.pdf
I have not looked at it today.
Such a FOIA request has been filed in 2018.... ;)QuoteWhile criticism persisted, MOL personnel argued that VHR imagery would have provided comprehensible evidence for decision-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Does anyone recall seeing this in a doc somewhere ?
Yes, I saw it in a doc about VHR. It was about the value of the low-altitude reconnaissance flights during the Missile Crisis vs. the U-2 imagery. The low-altitude images revealed important details missing from the U-2 imagery. I forget what they were (if they were even mentioned in that document), but there is supporting evidence in places like Brugioni's Cuban Missile Crisis book.
So far all we have is anecdotal evidence about the value of VHR. I don't know of a still-classified comprehensive study about what VHR provides.
Update: Found it:
Robert Perry “Recce Satellite R&D: Capabilities in Readout, Crisis Reconnaissance and Very High Resolution"
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/docs/hosr/hosr-vol4.pdf
I have not looked at it today.
Thanks for that. That's an interesting doc, new to me, and much more about readout/EOI than VHR as far as I can see. In fact it's the longest account of the readout/EOI saga up to the KH-11 decision that I can recall seeing. Might be worth requesting a review of the redactions as surely some are now obsolete ?
edit: and it actually has been processed:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf)
Maybe no-one has a "definitive" answer? It seems that most strategic requirements (like the location of Soviet ICBM or ABM and SAM sites) were already addressed by KH-4A's 7 to 10 ft resolution.edit: and it actually has been processed:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf)
Yeah, that was me. I read it when I got it rereleased and nothing jumped out at me as very revelatory. In fact, I remember being disappointed. If somebody wants to point out what was revealed in the newer version vs. the older one, please go ahead.
This discussion reminded me that I started--and forgot about--a draft article about VHR. I wanted to write about proposals like HEXADOR and the value of VHR. I think the reason I never proceeded with it very far is because I was underwhelmed by the material released on this subject to date. Nothing I've found answers the question of what is the magic of VHR.
Maybe no-one has a "definitive" answer? It seems that most strategic requirements (like the location of Soviet ICBM or ABM and SAM sites) were already addressed by KH-4A's 7 to 10 ft resolution.
A memo from Aug 1960 states that OXCART's 1ft ground resolution (as opposed to U2's 2.25 ft resolution) would reveal "exact physical characteristics of individual aircraft, missiles erected on launch pads, individual industrial plants, and technical intelligence of various types."
The only vague justification I could find for still higher resolution was the desire to determine the calibre of Soviet weapons (tanks).
edit: and it actually has been processed:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf)
Yeah, that was me. I read it when I got it rereleased and nothing jumped out at me as very revelatory. In fact, I remember being disappointed. If somebody wants to point out what was revealed in the newer version vs. the older one, please go ahead.
There is a document that mentions something about the value of VHR in certain circumstances. The example I remember is determining the control surfaces on an ABM missile. The NIIRS scale also indicates what can be detected at different resolutions, so certainly that is a clue. What would be good to have is some kind of document that states not only what they could see with VHR, but what they needed to see and why that was important.The GAMBIT Story iterates the NIIRS scale. For Rating Categories 8 and 9 an antenna of the SA-4 launcher and SA-2 canards are quoted as examples, respectively. They also mention the ability to discern certain features of Mig-21/FISHBED (the attached images give an idea of the scale of the difference for two different Mig-21 models). The section on NIIRS closes with "(...) GAMBIT-3 was (...) consistently acquiring imagery REDACTED"
edit: and it actually has been processed:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf)
Yeah, that was me. I read it when I got it rereleased and nothing jumped out at me as very revelatory. In fact, I remember being disappointed. If somebody wants to point out what was revealed in the newer version vs. the older one, please go ahead.
Happy to move this to the KH-11/EOI/Frog thread but I have browsed the differences between the 2 versions of Perry's draft and can now see what you mean, I guess the main differences indeed aren't especially revelatory.
However I did see one interesting thing, on pages 57-59 of newer version (doc itself, not including the comments at start of pdf), when discussing cheaper options for a crisis satellite in June 1969. See 3 grabs below. It refers to a satellite building on EARPOP (which I take to mean P-11 here) and metsat experience, does this suggest a small spin stabilised vehicle ?
[Edit: Hadn't realised when I wrote the above that the latest from Joe Page https://thespacereview.com/article/4526/1
mentions a "SPIN SCAN" project-perhaps we'll be hearing more soon. ]
The "MOL and HEXAGON termination" memo from April 11, 1969, comparing a future "improved" G3 to MOL, states:
"This MOL higher resolution will provide many critical fine details which will allow us to determine a number of performance characteristics of emerging weapons systems well in advance of test demonstrations. This capability should be of considerable value in any arms control limitation."
The "HEXAGON termination" memo, also from early 1969, states that The G-3 best resolution to date has been 12"
Happy to move this to the KH-11/EOI/Frog thread but I have browsed the differences between the 2 versions of Perry's draft and can now see what you mean, I guess the main differences indeed aren't especially revelatory.
However I did see one interesting thing, on pages 57-59 of newer version (doc itself, not including the comments at start of pdf), when discussing cheaper options for a crisis satellite in June 1969. See 3 grabs below. It refers to a satellite building on EARPOP (which I take to mean P-11 here) and metsat experience, does this suggest a small spin stabilised vehicle ?
[Edit: Hadn't realised when I wrote the above that the latest from Joe Page https://thespacereview.com/article/4526/1
mentions a "SPIN SCAN" project-perhaps we'll be hearing more soon. ]
I was going to reply with SPIN SCAN, but you updated before I could reply.
By EARPOP they certainly mean the P-11/P-989 satellites*. I'm guessing that the "experience" means efforts to build in direct downlink. I have an article in the works about that and the development of TENCAP (Tactical Exploitation of National CAPabilities). However, I don't have anything on the technical details, like using specific frequencies to enable smaller receiver dishes, which helped make the system mobile and therefore tactical, rather than hooked to a fixed ground station.
1--Thanks. Did you mean to add a footnote there ?
2--I should have been more precise in my quoting, isn't it possible that by "an application ... of approaches developed and tested in the Earpop Elint ... and in the P-35 weather satellite" Perry just meant spin stabilisation ? All P-11s before about 1970, and all the earliest metsats, were spin stabilised, and the latter were literally spin scan. And these were the only spinners used by NRO before JUMPSEAT and SDS which used a much more elaborate stabilisation system.
edit: and it actually has been processed:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf)
Yeah, that was me. I read it when I got it rereleased and nothing jumped out at me as very revelatory. In fact, I remember being disappointed. If somebody wants to point out what was revealed in the newer version vs. the older one, please go ahead.
Happy to move this to the KH-11/EOI/Frog thread but I have browsed the differences between the 2 versions of Perry's draft and can now see what you mean, I guess the main differences indeed aren't especially revelatory.
However I did see one interesting thing, on pages 57-59 of newer version (doc itself, not including the comments at start of pdf), when discussing cheaper options for a crisis satellite in June 1969. See 3 grabs below. It refers to a satellite building on EARPOP (which I take to mean P-11 here) and metsat experience, does this suggest a small spin stabilised vehicle ?
[Edit: Hadn't realised when I wrote the above that the latest from Joe Page https://thespacereview.com/article/4526/1
mentions a "SPIN SCAN" project-perhaps we'll be hearing more soon. ]
edit: and it actually has been processed:
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf (https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/050918/F-2018-00047.pdf)
Yeah, that was me. I read it when I got it rereleased and nothing jumped out at me as very revelatory. In fact, I remember being disappointed. If somebody wants to point out what was revealed in the newer version vs. the older one, please go ahead.
Happy to move this to the KH-11/EOI/Frog thread but I have browsed the differences between the 2 versions of Perry's draft and can now see what you mean, I guess the main differences indeed aren't especially revelatory.
However I did see one interesting thing, on pages 57-59 of newer version (doc itself, not including the comments at start of pdf), when discussing cheaper options for a crisis satellite in June 1969. See 3 grabs below. It refers to a satellite building on EARPOP (which I take to mean P-11 here) and metsat experience, does this suggest a small spin stabilised vehicle ?
[Edit: Hadn't realised when I wrote the above that the latest from Joe Page https://thespacereview.com/article/4526/1
mentions a "SPIN SCAN" project-perhaps we'll be hearing more soon. ]
Interesting! Would spin-scanning be the best strategy for crisis response, where you would like to obtain images of very specific locations on a very short time scale? I always thought of spin-scanning more as a survey strategy, where one slowly fills in gaps, and after many orbits (several days, or weeks) is getting the "complete picture".
Any ideas on the observational strategy?
Interesting! Would spin-scanning be the best strategy for crisis response, where you would like to obtain images of very specific locations on a very short time scale? I always thought of spin-scanning more as a survey strategy, where one slowly fills in gaps, and after many orbits (several days, or weeks) is getting the "complete picture".
Any ideas on the observational strategy?
Interesting! Would spin-scanning be the best strategy for crisis response, where you would like to obtain images of very specific locations on a very short time scale? I always thought of spin-scanning more as a survey strategy, where one slowly fills in gaps, and after many orbits (several days, or weeks) is getting the "complete picture".
Any ideas on the observational strategy?
Just think of it as a scanner like the early spinning Tiros or DMSP satellites. It produces an image by scanning quickly over the face of the earth. It could take an image over an area, store it on a tape recorder, and then beam it down to a ground station. The obvious limitation is resolution. It would have been very poor considering the technology of the time--short focal length and limited image capture options.
The GAMBIT Story iterates the NIIRS scale. For Rating Categories 8 and 9 an antenna of the SA-4 launcher and SA-2 canards are quoted as examples, respectively. They also mention the ability to discern certain features of Mig-21/FISHBED (the attached images give an idea of the scale of the difference for two different Mig-21 models). The section on NIIRS closes with "(...) GAMBIT-3 was (...) consistently acquiring imagery REDACTED"
We know from the accidental lapse in redaction in the "original" release of this document in Sept. 2011 that "(...) the mature system produced examples of imagery better than four inches ground resolution distance" - see
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26821.msg886828#msg886828 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26821.msg886828#msg886828)
My understanding is that "the fact of a resolution better than 1 ft" remains classified (the latest declassification round had moved the fact from "better than 3 ft" to "better than 2 ft"). The way the classification system works, this probably means that studies on the overall value of VHR might also stay classified.
I'm going to muse about this stuff, including the crisis response stuff, this weekend and may post some more of my ramblings here.
Indeed, it would be best to ask for a specific document, rather than trying to initiate a key word search.The GAMBIT Story iterates the NIIRS scale. For Rating Categories 8 and 9 an antenna of the SA-4 launcher and SA-2 canards are quoted as examples, respectively. They also mention the ability to discern certain features of Mig-21/FISHBED (the attached images give an idea of the scale of the difference for two different Mig-21 models). The section on NIIRS closes with "(...) GAMBIT-3 was (...) consistently acquiring imagery REDACTED"
We know from the accidental lapse in redaction in the "original" release of this document in Sept. 2011 that "(...) the mature system produced examples of imagery better than four inches ground resolution distance" - see
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26821.msg886828#msg886828 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26821.msg886828#msg886828)
My understanding is that "the fact of a resolution better than 1 ft" remains classified (the latest declassification round had moved the fact from "better than 3 ft" to "better than 2 ft"). The way the classification system works, this probably means that studies on the overall value of VHR might also stay classified.
Getting back to thinking about this some more...
Thanks for that info above. On your last comment, it seems that they could declassify something from such studies, even if they deleted substantial portions of them. The first problem is that we don't have any references to such studies. So any FOIA effort would be general, which makes it easier for them to deny it--requesting a specific document via FOIA is best.
I once had somebody who worked on the ground side of GAMBIT-3 tell me that the best resolution returned from that system was 2.4 inches. I trust the source, although he was on the operations side, not somebody who regularly used the images. Without better declassified sources, the best we have is that accidental release. (Also: I should add that the best resolution ever obtained from a HEXAGON was 6-inches. None of the documents indicate that, but I got it from a reliable source.)
I'm going to muse about this stuff, including the crisis response stuff, this weekend and may post some more of my ramblings here.
Indeed, it would be best to ask for a specific document, rather than trying to initiate a key word search.
A CREST search for VHR https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/search/site/VHR (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/search/site/VHR) lists:
i) a "Letter of appreciation" by the COMIREX VHR Evaluation Panel for a study on imaging resolution requirements carried out between May and Oct 1970.
ii) a COMIREX memo from June 23, 1971, referring to a "COMIREX Imagery Resolution Requirements Study, 30 October 1970, TCS-8799/70"
CREST lists a 1-page document by that name:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b01709a003700010001-1 (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b01709a003700010001-1)
In my very limited experience, CIA FOIA can be quite responsive when asking for a specific document. The initial classification "S" would suggest that the document did not inherit any "TS" classification. As the linked document has a page count "1", it might be best to ask for all documents with the document ID(?) "TCS-8799/70", or the title "COMIREX Imagery Resolution Requirements Study", and dated 30 October 1970.Indeed, it would be best to ask for a specific document, rather than trying to initiate a key word search.
A CREST search for VHR https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/search/site/VHR (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/search/site/VHR) lists:
i) a "Letter of appreciation" by the COMIREX VHR Evaluation Panel for a study on imaging resolution requirements carried out between May and Oct 1970.
ii) a COMIREX memo from June 23, 1971, referring to a "COMIREX Imagery Resolution Requirements Study, 30 October 1970, TCS-8799/70"
CREST lists a 1-page document by that name:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b01709a003700010001-1 (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b01709a003700010001-1)
Thanks for that. But I wonder what agency is responsible for COMIREX reports? Would that be CIA? Or does COMIREX now fall under NGA?
If I file a FOIA with CIA I can expect to wait many years for a response. NRO can be much faster. I don't know about NGA. I think I filed something with NGA a few years ago and they responded by saying "Go away."
I looked at Lt. General Lew Allen's notes leading into this again:
Robert Perry “Recce Satellite R&D: Capabilities in Readout, Crisis Reconnaissance and Very High Resolution"
Very interesting.
many felt it was essential that DOD have some kind of man in space effort if the national commitment to Apollo was really going to generate a new era of manned spaceflight.which is particularly intriguing comment if made around the time of the Shuttle decisions, and ii) the bald statement that
the DORIAN camera specifications were actually optimised to make maximum use of man's contribution and were substantially off-optimum for an unmanned application (e.g. focal length too long).Is it known in detail what is he getting at with the latter comment ?
So...The attached pages from a 1969 proposal for a study on "(...) the effect of photographic ground resolution on photointerpretation" briefly address the difficulty in quantifying the "dollar value" of intelligence.
Continuing my train of thought here, and my earlier posts about VHR and whether there was ever a study done about the need for VHR, I still think that there could have been a study done on VHR. It seems like it just makes sense: if you are studying a very high resolution reconnaissance satellite in terms of technology, orbits, etc., then an obvious question to ask is what it can do. And the related question to that is what is the value of doing that?
Allen may be right that there was no requirement/demand for VHR. But that does not mean that nobody studied what could be done with that kind of quality imagery.
and ii) the bald statement thatQuotethe DORIAN camera specifications were actually optimised to make maximum use of man's contribution and were substantially off-optimum for an unmanned application (e.g. focal length too long).Is it known in detail what is he getting at with the latter comment ?
The attached pages from a 1969 proposal for a study on "(...) the effect of photographic ground resolution on photointerpretation" briefly address the difficulty in quantifying the "dollar value" of intelligence.
The biggest challenge might have been to assign a strategic (rather than pure tactical) value to VHR.
Probably down to image circle: the human retina has cells packed only so close together in the fovea, so that puts an absolute maximum limit on effective lines/mm at the focal plane, as well as an absolute limit on image plane size (due to eyeball motion, this is more defined by the eye entrance pupil/optics exit pupil interaction, but for all intents and purposes has a maximum limit). If you want a higher ground resolution then you must reduce angle of view (increase focal length) to achieve it.Quotethe DORIAN camera specifications were actually optimised to make maximum use of man's contribution and were substantially off-optimum for an unmanned application (e.g. focal length too long).Is it known in detail what is he getting at with the latter comment ?
Meanwhile, I was interested to see four inches resolution quoted for DORIAN in the long and very detailed mapping camera history that I know was talked about here last year: https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/061422/F-2022-00041_C05099307.pdf (page i-9, see grab below)
Was that figure public anywhere else ?
Meanwhile, I was interested to see four inches resolution quoted for DORIAN in the long and very detailed mapping camera history that I know was talked about here last year: https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/061422/F-2022-00041_C05099307.pdf (page i-9, see grab below)
Was that figure public anywhere else ?
Ooh, that's a great find. I've told the story about how I found out about the resolution goal back in the 1990s. A guy told me a story...
According to a recently declassified memo concerning the visit [to NPIC] written by Major General James T. Stewart, Vice Director of the MOL program, [Hubert] Humphrey arrived about 45 minutes late for the visit. The initial briefing, held in a secure room at NPIC, involved Stewart telling Humphrey about the increasingly expensive and controversial program. According to a former NPIC photo-interpreter who was present for the briefing, at one point during the meeting Dick Helms, who had not spoken at all, wrote a note on a piece of paper, folded it, and slipped it in front of Humphrey, who glanced at it but did not say anything. After the briefing was over and the senior officials left the room, the photo-interpreter lingered behind and grabbed the piece of paper. On it, Helms had written “Why four inches?”
The "Final report" of the study, which had Autometric/Raytheon as one of the sponsors, and which is dated July 1970, describes that they obtained aerial overflight images of Aberdeen Proving Ground and artillery museum, and of Ft. Meade at 1.5" resolution. The negatives were processed by Eastman Kodak to create sets of images at a range of degraded resolutions, and then handed to "experienced photo-interpreters". The outcome of the PI analysis, though, seems to be subject of yet another report - security compartmentalization in action >:(The attached pages from a 1969 proposal for a study on "(...) the effect of photographic ground resolution on photointerpretation" briefly address the difficulty in quantifying the "dollar value" of intelligence.
The biggest challenge might have been to assign a strategic (rather than pure tactical) value to VHR.
Another good find. It also strikes me that this is the kind of thing they should have revisited periodically, because technology would have changed on the ground processing side, affecting what the satellites could deliver. For instance, 1-foot ground resolution in 1970 might have been necessary, but maybe a new system on the ground that provided image enhancement might have made it possible to get the same results with 2-foot resolution. There was certainly a major push for developing better processing systems that could do things like change analysis. I suspect that much of that was only incrementally useful until recent decades when massive computer power made it possible. Today it would not surprise me if a lot of the initial analysis is done by a computer, so an imaging satellite takes an image and a computer on the ground compares it to previous images of the same location and determines if there has been any real change. If not, the image is classified as lower priority.
<snip>
This story ?QuoteAccording to a recently declassified memo concerning the visit [to NPIC] written by Major General James T. Stewart, Vice Director of the MOL program, [Hubert] Humphrey arrived about 45 minutes late for the visit. The initial briefing, held in a secure room at NPIC, involved Stewart telling Humphrey about the increasingly expensive and controversial program. According to a former NPIC photo-interpreter who was present for the briefing, at one point during the meeting Dick Helms, who had not spoken at all, wrote a note on a piece of paper, folded it, and slipped it in front of Humphrey, who glanced at it but did not say anything. After the briefing was over and the senior officials left the room, the photo-interpreter lingered behind and grabbed the piece of paper. On it, Helms had written “Why four inches?”
From your piece at https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3490/1
The "Final report" of the study, which had Autometric/Raytheon as one of the sponsors, and which is dated July 1970, describes that they obtained aerial overflight images of Aberdeen Proving Ground and artillery museum, and of Ft. Meade at 1.5" resolution. The negatives were processed by Eastman Kodak to create sets of images at a range of degraded resolutions, and then handed to "experienced photo-interpreters". The outcome of the PI analysis, though, seems to be subject of yet another report - security compartmentalization in action >:(
It could have been meant to study what level of degradation could be applied to existing imagery to obscure full capability, whilst it still remaining useful. That was only a year before the debate on how to more widely utilise satellite imagery (e.g. the "bring more people into TALENT-KEYHOLE"/"move some images out of TALENT-KEYHOLE"/"declassify images within TALENT-KEYHOLE" question studied by COMIREX https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/Archive/NARP/1971%20NARPs/SC-2021-00001_C05134214.pdf).The "Final report" of the study, which had Autometric/Raytheon as one of the sponsors, and which is dated July 1970, describes that they obtained aerial overflight images of Aberdeen Proving Ground and artillery museum, and of Ft. Meade at 1.5" resolution. The negatives were processed by Eastman Kodak to create sets of images at a range of degraded resolutions, and then handed to "experienced photo-interpreters". The outcome of the PI analysis, though, seems to be subject of yet another report - security compartmentalization in action >:(
So that's interesting, but raises some questions. First, an aside: the 1963 study did essentially the same thing. (Was that the Drell Panel? It was either the Drell Panel or the Purcell Panel. I'm too lazy to look that up at the moment.) That's what led them to the conclusion that they needed a system with CORONA area coverage and GAMBIT resolution, and I think at that time GAMBIT resolution was 2-3 feet.
But why in 1970 did they start with 1.5 feet? Why not start with something higher, like 6 inches, and then work down from there? After all, they were already close to 1.5 feet, and they were discussing systems that could do better than that. This seems like they framed the question of "Assume you have the capability of the system planned for 1973. What can you do with it?"
In other words, the parameters of the study seem like they were trying to justify the planned capabilities of GAMBIT, rather than asking if something better was required.
Starting ground resolution was 1.5 inch (''), not feet (') ;)The "Final report" of the study, which had Autometric/Raytheon as one of the sponsors, and which is dated July 1970, describes that they obtained aerial overflight images of Aberdeen Proving Ground and artillery museum, and of Ft. Meade at 1.5" resolution.<snip>
<snip>
But why in 1970 did they start with 1.5 feet?
<snip>
Starting ground resolution was 1.5 inch (''), not feet (') ;)The "Final report" of the study, which had Autometric/Raytheon as one of the sponsors, and which is dated July 1970, describes that they obtained aerial overflight images of Aberdeen Proving Ground and artillery museum, and of Ft. Meade at 1.5" resolution.<snip>
<snip>
But why in 1970 did they start with 1.5 feet?
<snip>
Starting ground resolution was 1.5 inch (''), not feet (') ;)The "Final report" of the study, which had Autometric/Raytheon as one of the sponsors, and which is dated July 1970, describes that they obtained aerial overflight images of Aberdeen Proving Ground and artillery museum, and of Ft. Meade at 1.5" resolution.<snip>
<snip>
But why in 1970 did they start with 1.5 feet?
<snip>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyh1Va_mYWI
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3049/1A less-redacted version of the memo on "Project COLT" to NRO Director John McLucas from Jan 1971 has been released. It now reveals two additional motivations for giving 6 of the 72 inch blanks to UA (Meinel). The previous redactions, though, were hiding quite obvious facts:
Through the looking glass
by Dwayne Day
Monday, August 22, 2016
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was expensive, especially for a military space program that was already expanding rapidly in the 1960s while the Vietnam War was ramping up. Although nowhere near as pricey as Apollo, MOL was still a substantial expenditure, involving the procurement of a major optical system, human spaceflight systems—including Gemini spacecraft—and new large rockets to boost MOL into orbit. By the time it was canceled in summer 1969, MOL’s price tag had doubled to more than $3 billion, and its schedule had repeatedly slipped.
When it was canceled, program officials sought out potential customers of the MOL hardware that had already been built. MOL officials within the secret National Reconnaissance Office that was responsible for it made inquiries to NASA offering their hardware and large optics technology, trying to make lemonade out of the lemons of the cancellation decision. Among the most expensive and unique pieces of MOL hardware were more than half a dozen large mirrors that were a key component in MOL’s large KH-10 DORIAN camera system.
They also released a couple of docs on SAMOS E-2 and E-5, and a few early ELINT related docs (Projects CANIS, TANGIBLE, ROPEVAL):
c. The synthetic aperture concept has the potential for large optics at significantly reduced weight over conventional fabrication techniques.
Precise wavefront control and maintenance of the "phasing" of the segments requires an active control loop (sensor + data analysis + actuators). Probably not worth the effort in LEO. From GEO on the other hand...
c. The synthetic aperture concept has the potential for large optics at significantly reduced weight over conventional fabrication techniques.
And yet they ultimately did not go that route, as far as we know.
The FIA optics used a 2.4 meter diameter mirror and was considerably lighter than previous optics. That reminds me that we have those data points and we need to plot them:Palomar 200": 627 kg/m^2 (12 700 kg total mass)
-mirror diameter/mass for GAMBIT-3
-mirror diameter/mass for DORIAN
-mirror diameter/mass for Advanced GAMBIT-3
-mirror diameter/mass for KH-11 (I don't think we have this mass figure)
-mirror diameter/mass for Hubble
-mirror diameter/mass for FIA
There was a substantial mass reduction from GAMBIT-3 to FIA. All I can guess is that it was sufficient to meet their requirements and they did not go the synthetic aperture route. (Some caveats apply.)
Palomar 200": 627 kg/m^2 (12 700 kg total mass)
KH-10 (MMT): 207 kg/m^2 (544 kg total mass)
Hubble Space Telescope: 181 kg/m^2 (818 kg total mass)
Roman Space Telescope (FIA): 41 kg/m^2 (186 kg total mass)
James Webb Space Telescope: 21 kg/m^2 (705 kg total mass for PMSA segments + support structure)
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2347340#msg2347340 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2347340#msg2347340)
Based on the small difference between KH-10 and Hubble, I would guess that early KH-11 mirror diameter/mass ratios were in the same ballpark. Later blocks probably moved closer to the ratios for Roman (FIA?). Do you have the (Advanced) GAMBIT-3 numbers at hand?
Thanks. "The Gambit Story" lists the weight of the G-3 primary as 374.7 lb, i.e. around 170 kg. For a 43.5 inch diameter this results in 177 kg/m^2, thus about the same as for KH-10 and HST. The G-3 mirror was probably somewhat thinner than the larger diameter KH-10 and HST mirrors.
Palomar 200": 627 kg/m^2 (12 700 kg total mass)
KH-10 (MMT): 207 kg/m^2 (544 kg total mass)
Hubble Space Telescope: 181 kg/m^2 (818 kg total mass)
Roman Space Telescope (FIA): 41 kg/m^2 (186 kg total mass)
James Webb Space Telescope: 21 kg/m^2 (705 kg total mass for PMSA segments + support structure)
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2347340#msg2347340 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2347340#msg2347340)
Based on the small difference between KH-10 and Hubble, I would guess that early KH-11 mirror diameter/mass ratios were in the same ballpark. Later blocks probably moved closer to the ratios for Roman (FIA?). Do you have the (Advanced) GAMBIT-3 numbers at hand?
Those are great. We need to plot them out on a graph, but just going from the KH-10 to the FIA shows an incredible mass reduction.
AG3 is here:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4426/1
Note that "9x5" refers to the GAMBIT-3 version then in use.
It is interesting that "similar work" was going on at that time, but the codename and name of the study lead are still redacted. A related release concerns a media request on the "Segmented Mirror Telescope", which NRO had donated to the Naval Postgraduate School" in 2010, and potential technology heritage in JWST.
They were quite open about SMT's origin and the transfer in late 2009/early 2010. In the video segment (2nd link) it is mentioned that the motivation for the project was to develop imaging satellites for a "higher orbit", and that the project was apparently completed/terminated around 2005 (they mention that it took NPS 4 yrs to get the transfer arranged):
It is interesting that "similar work" was going on at that time, but the codename and name of the study lead are still redacted. A related release concerns a media request on the "Segmented Mirror Telescope", which NRO had donated to the Naval Postgraduate School" in 2010, and potential technology heritage in JWST.
I missed this part. I don't think it was previously public that the Segmented Mirror Telescope was donated by NRO to the NPS, was it? I thought that the official story was that the SMT was developed as part of a missile defense project. I always assumed NRO was behind it in some way, but the program itself was not classified. Another rabbit hole for me to jump down...
The one I am thinking about was on the cover of Aviation Week in the early 1990s. Came out of the SDI program. I am not at my office right now, but I have a big file on it. Just cannot remember the name.
They also released a couple of docs on SAMOS E-2 and E-5, and a few early ELINT related docs (Projects CANIS, TANGIBLE, ROPEVAL):
CANES is interesting. An electronic detection package on TRANSIT navigation satellites circa 1960. Did we know about this before? The name seems familiar, but my brain is making windy echo sounds when I try to remember this.
Thanks for the update.
And thanks from me. I couldn't remember it either but it is in the place where I thought it might be, the massive Program C history https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/docs/U.S.%20Navy-NRO%20Program%20C%20Electronic%20Intelligence%20Satellites%20(1958-1977).pdf
declassified in 2012, see below
And thanks from me. I couldn't remember it either but it is in the place where I thought it might be, the massive Program C history https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/docs/U.S.%20Navy-NRO%20Program%20C%20Electronic%20Intelligence%20Satellites%20(1958-1977).pdf
declassified in 2012, see below
I'll have to look at this more closely. My quick skim of the FOIA documents indicated that CANES was something that would be added on to Transit. However, Tattletale became GRAB, right? But this history indicates that CANES was going to replace Tattletale. Untying this knot might be difficult.
I've mostly avoided going too deep into the GRAB/GREB/DYNO and then POPPY history because the few times I waded into it years ago, the source material was very confusing. Partly that was due to continued classification, but there were also confusing histories. And it just wasn't clear what was being upgraded on the systems over time and how they were gaining capabilities (also partly due to the classification--when they delete all the frequency ranges, it's impossible to say that it changed from frequency X to frequency Y, only that some kind of change occurred).
That's what I thought but phrase "Transit pickaback launch of two units" might actually mean with Transit not on Transit ?
(I realize this is not part of MOL, but we don't have another thread specifically on this subject. We could probably shift it over to the SIGINT thread.)
What is the best source or sources on the changes between the Gemini B and the NASA Gemini?
Doing some research and need to understand this better.
Is there an overall MOL chronology somewhere? I looked in the official MOL history and did not find anything. There is a MOL chronology document, but it only covers the launch plans, not the overall program.Not sure. There are the general accounts like in "A Military Man in Space" and "Struggling towards space doctrine". Looking at NASA's "Astronautics and Aeronautics" publications from 1963 to 1970, it almost looks like you could compile the MOL chronology from those, see screenshot for a one page example.
Is there an overall MOL chronology somewhere? I looked in the official MOL history and did not find anything. There is a MOL chronology document, but it only covers the launch plans, not the overall program.Not sure. There are the general accounts like in "A Military Man in Space" and "Struggling towards space doctrine". Looking at NASA's "Astronautics and Aeronautics" publications from 1963 to 1970, it almost looks like you could compile the MOL chronology from those, see screenshot for a one page example.
Those help. The NRO compiled other program chronologies and we have them (it would probably be a neat idea to post a bunch of them to a single thread). For instance, I think we have both FULCRUM and HEXAGON development program histories up to some point. I think there is also a Samos one.Nice idea.
And by chronology, I mean a list of key events. I'm working on something where I cannot write the whole history, but want to touch on the key events that happened over several years. And I'd rather not have to plow through the entire Berger history to extract the key events.
I do understand what you mean by chronology, and have found doing a home made one v useful for a project that I am much more focused on-I may well include it as an appendix when that finally gets finished. However MOL doesn't interest me
I do understand what you mean by chronology, and have found doing a home made one v useful for a project that I am much more focused on-I may well include it as an appendix when that finally gets finished. However MOL doesn't interest me
I am trying to control how much time and effort I put into this project. Assembling my own chronology is within my abilities, but would take more time and effort than I want to devote to it.
I do understand what you mean by chronology, and have found doing a home made one v useful for a project that I am much more focused on-I may well include it as an appendix when that finally gets finished. However MOL doesn't interest me
I am trying to control how much time and effort I put into this project. Assembling my own chronology is within my abilities, but would take more time and effort than I want to devote to it.
Sure, I wasn't trying to volunteer you either-just flagging that afaik you are right and this chronology has not even been gathered together by NRO, or Aerospace for example.
Can't help thinking about South Park legendary " underpants gnomes" profit scheme here. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes
"USAF wants manned space flight, post DynaSoar " - "needs a mission" - "tries many missions" - "NRO" = "SOLUTION"
Can't help thinking about South Park legendary " underpants gnomes" profit scheme here. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes
I cannot find it with a quick look. Is there a good short overview of the DORIAN camera system, including its focal length?My eye-balling estimate of the Effective Focal length of the primary mirror is 490 inch (12.45m) and f/7 - see
I'll explain what I'm doing a little later.
I do understand what you mean by chronology, and have found doing a home made one v useful for a project that I am much more focused on-I may well include it as an appendix when that finally gets finished. However MOL doesn't interest me as much as the mid-late 60s and evolution of DSP/RH/CANYON etc, so I am not volunteering ;-)
I do understand what you mean by chronology, and have found doing a home made one v useful for a project that I am much more focused on-I may well include it as an appendix when that finally gets finished. However MOL doesn't interest me as much as the mid-late 60s and evolution of DSP/RH/CANYON etc, so I am not volunteering ;-)
Question. How is DSP related to RH/CANYON?
Can't help thinking about South Park legendary " underpants gnomes" profit scheme here. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes
Do you know how many space plans share that characteristic?
For example: "Build cheap rockets"--->And then a miracle occurs--->Mars colony!
I cannot find it with a quick look. Is there a good short overview of the DORIAN camera system, including its focal length?Another interesting number is that DORIAN was really aiming for close-to-diffraction limited performance. The "optical tolerance" of the primary mirror was 1/10 of a wavelength (this is typically measured in the optical, i.e. at a wavelength of approximately 500 nm, possible also 633 nm in case they were using a HeNe laser as reference). This number was retracted in another version of this graph, which was posted by LittleBird last year: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2350942#msg2350942 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2350942#msg2350942)
I'll explain what I'm doing a little later.
Speaking of "miracles" - did we already discuss the attached concept, which shows a KH-11-type telescope with the camera in the Cassegrain focus, and attached via a two-axis mount to MOL?Can't help thinking about South Park legendary " underpants gnomes" profit scheme here. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes
Do you know how many space plans share that characteristic?
For example: "Build cheap rockets"--->And then a miracle occurs--->Mars colony!
I'm afraid that phrase will alway bring this Harris cartoon to my mind:
Speaking of "miracles" - did we already discuss the attached concept, which shows a KH-11-type telescope with the camera in the Cassegrain focus, and attached via a two-axis mount to MOL?
This would have been the ultimate Frankenstein (Kerbal?) surveillance telescope...
Edit: Of course, "someone" already included this graphics in his article(s) ... ;)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1 (https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1)
Edit 2: now if we just imagine removing MOL from the graphics, and the 2-axis mount, what is left is [REDACTED]
Speaking of "miracles" - did we already discuss the attached concept, which shows a KH-11-type telescope with the camera in the Cassegrain focus, and attached via a two-axis mount to MOL?
This would have been the ultimate Frankenstein (Kerbal?) surveillance telescope...
Edit: Of course, "someone" already included this graphics in his article(s) ... ;)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1 (https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1)
Edit 2: now if we just imagine removing MOL from the graphics, and the 2-axis mount, what is left is [REDACTED]
These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.Speaking of "miracles" - did we already discuss the attached concept, which shows a KH-11-type telescope with the camera in the Cassegrain focus, and attached via a two-axis mount to MOL?
This would have been the ultimate Frankenstein (Kerbal?) surveillance telescope...
Edit: Of course, "someone" already included this graphics in his article(s) ... ;)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1 (https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2553/1)
Edit 2: now if we just imagine removing MOL from the graphics, and the 2-axis mount, what is left is [REDACTED]
That's a nice one ... is it from the late 60s after the design was firmed up, or from the early 60s era that also produced some amazing images like these SIGINT dishes ? (Edit: thay are all from the declassified contractors' presentations in spring 1965 for MOL, included in the ~800 pdfs released in iirc 2015.)
These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.
Do we know about the planned work schedule for the DORIAN/MOL astronauts? Were they supposed to work together, or in shifts (i.e. telescope operators alternating for consecutive passes over USSR/China)? Work/sleep schedule would probably have been tailored to the day-/night-time passages over eastern Europe and Asia?
These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.
Do we know about the planned work schedule for the DORIAN/MOL astronauts? Were they supposed to work together, or in shifts (i.e. telescope operators alternating for consecutive passes over USSR/China)? Work/sleep schedule would probably have been tailored to the day-/night-time passages over eastern Europe and Asia?
This is one of the questions I've pondered ever since I started paying attention to MOL. I actually asked Crippen and Truly about what the schedule was supposed to be. I don't believe the program had reached that point where they began planning the schedule, but they said that the plan was that one astronaut would sleep while the other operated the reconnaissance equipment, but they always figured they would both be up working the equipment.
I assume that there are computer programs (I guess we call them apps now?) where you could put in the MOL orbit and generate a timeline and see how much time it would be over targets of interest. Camera operations over the USSR only make sense during optimal lighting times, so if the USSR is dark or mostly dark, the astronauts could sleep. But how much time would that really give them? Also, they'd still have other things to do while not taking photos, like maintenance, eating, hygiene, etc.
I recently read some comments by then-Brig. Gen. Lew Allen about how MOL was compromised because it took a really high-resolution camera system and then forced it to also operate unmanned. But I think he was looking at it from the exact opposite direction--the astronauts created big limitations on the operation of the system.
Yeah. Mission planning software such as discussed a while back in this thread (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2444329#msg2444329). Probably doc #711 in that same post.These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.I assume that there are computer programs (I guess we call them apps now?) where you could put in the MOL orbit and generate a timeline and see how much time it would be over targets of interest. Camera operations over the USSR only make sense during optimal lighting times, so if the USSR is dark or mostly dark, the astronauts could sleep. But how much time would that really give them? Also, they'd still have other things to do while not taking photos, like maintenance, eating, hygiene, etc.
Do we know about the planned work schedule for the DORIAN/MOL astronauts? Were they supposed to work together, or in shifts (i.e. telescope operators alternating for consecutive passes over USSR/China)? Work/sleep schedule would probably have been tailored to the day-/night-time passages over eastern Europe and Asia?
So, the thing is... I don't really want to be writing about MOL now. But I have some things that are kinda making me research and write about MOL at this time.
Thanks to the link above, I re-discovered this image, which shows where they would have stored the film in the Gemini B. I remember asking Crippen and Truly about where they would store the film and one of them replied that this was a big problem.
So, the thing is... I don't really want to be writing about MOL now. But I have some things that are kinda making me research and write about MOL at this time.
Thanks to the link above, I re-discovered this image, which shows where they would have stored the film in the Gemini B. I remember asking Crippen and Truly about where they would store the film and one of them replied that this was a big problem.
there was the SRVs deployed by the crew
These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.
Do we know about the planned work schedule for the DORIAN/MOL astronauts? Were they supposed to work together, or in shifts (i.e. telescope operators alternating for consecutive passes over USSR/China)? Work/sleep schedule would probably have been tailored to the day-/night-time passages over eastern Europe and Asia?
This is one of the questions I've pondered ever since I started paying attention to MOL. I actually asked Crippen and Truly about what the schedule was supposed to be. I don't believe the program had reached that point where they began planning the schedule, but they said that the plan was that one astronaut would sleep while the other operated the reconnaissance equipment, but they always figured they would both be up working the equipment.
I assume that there are computer programs (I guess we call them apps now?) where you could put in the MOL orbit and generate a timeline and see how much time it would be over targets of interest. Camera operations over the USSR only make sense during optimal lighting times, so if the USSR is dark or mostly dark, the astronauts could sleep. But how much time would that really give them? Also, they'd still have other things to do while not taking photos, like maintenance, eating, hygiene, etc.
I recently read some comments by then-Brig. Gen. Lew Allen about how MOL was compromised because it took a really high-resolution camera system and then forced it to also operate unmanned. But I think he was looking at it from the exact opposite direction--the astronauts created big limitations on the operation of the system.
Wow, task overload, anyone? What about regular MOL maintenance activities? Weren't the initial 3-person ISS crews busy almost full-time with regular maintenance activities in order to keep ISS operational?These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.
Do we know about the planned work schedule for the DORIAN/MOL astronauts? Were they supposed to work together, or in shifts (i.e. telescope operators alternating for consecutive passes over USSR/China)? Work/sleep schedule would probably have been tailored to the day-/night-time passages over eastern Europe and Asia?
This is one of the questions I've pondered ever since I started paying attention to MOL. I actually asked Crippen and Truly about what the schedule was supposed to be. I don't believe the program had reached that point where they began planning the schedule, but they said that the plan was that one astronaut would sleep while the other operated the reconnaissance equipment, but they always figured they would both be up working the equipment.
I assume that there are computer programs (I guess we call them apps now?) where you could put in the MOL orbit and generate a timeline and see how much time it would be over targets of interest. Camera operations over the USSR only make sense during optimal lighting times, so if the USSR is dark or mostly dark, the astronauts could sleep. But how much time would that really give them? Also, they'd still have other things to do while not taking photos, like maintenance, eating, hygiene, etc.
I recently read some comments by then-Brig. Gen. Lew Allen about how MOL was compromised because it took a really high-resolution camera system and then forced it to also operate unmanned. But I think he was looking at it from the exact opposite direction--the astronauts created big limitations on the operation of the system.
and re Jim's reply, I notice there are some slides in the declassified ~800 pdf set that show the workday as envisaged at one point, see my post https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2352578#msg2352578 and attached.
Makes the life of Poole and Bowman on the good ship Discovery 1 seem like a piece of cake ...
Wow, task overload, anyone? What about regular MOL maintenance activities? Weren't the initial 3-person ISS crews busy almost full-time with regular maintenance activities in order to keep ISS operational?These illustrations nicely visualize the main "problem" of MOL. There is very little (if at all) to be gained by attaching a manned laboratory to an orbiting surveillance platform, which by design should be operational 24/7, and hence needs the capability for operating autonomously.
Do we know about the planned work schedule for the DORIAN/MOL astronauts? Were they supposed to work together, or in shifts (i.e. telescope operators alternating for consecutive passes over USSR/China)? Work/sleep schedule would probably have been tailored to the day-/night-time passages over eastern Europe and Asia?
This is one of the questions I've pondered ever since I started paying attention to MOL. I actually asked Crippen and Truly about what the schedule was supposed to be. I don't believe the program had reached that point where they began planning the schedule, but they said that the plan was that one astronaut would sleep while the other operated the reconnaissance equipment, but they always figured they would both be up working the equipment.
I assume that there are computer programs (I guess we call them apps now?) where you could put in the MOL orbit and generate a timeline and see how much time it would be over targets of interest. Camera operations over the USSR only make sense during optimal lighting times, so if the USSR is dark or mostly dark, the astronauts could sleep. But how much time would that really give them? Also, they'd still have other things to do while not taking photos, like maintenance, eating, hygiene, etc.
I recently read some comments by then-Brig. Gen. Lew Allen about how MOL was compromised because it took a really high-resolution camera system and then forced it to also operate unmanned. But I think he was looking at it from the exact opposite direction--the astronauts created big limitations on the operation of the system.
and re Jim's reply, I notice there are some slides in the declassified ~800 pdf set that show the workday as envisaged at one point, see my post https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2352578#msg2352578 and attached.
Makes the life of Poole and Bowman on the good ship Discovery 1 seem like a piece of cake ...
1960s were truly the period of The Right Stuff astronauts - 15.5hr work shifts for 30 days with no time planned for contingencies or breaks.
Wow, task overload, anyone?
Similarly, there were other things like how long it took to do other tasks, like hygiene. They just didn't have much of a dataset back then. Plus, the military mindset might work against them, where they assume that everybody is just going to tough it out, but eventually fatigue sets in and people make mistakes. Make a mistake during reentry and it could be fatal.
The one thing that really did help me was the set of briefing slides done for an incoming DNRO, possibly Flax [Edit: actually later, McLucas, just before cancellation], that had a chronological stovepipe diagram, running left to right. Here's the link https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2438573#msg2438573 to my old post on this, see grabs below:
Looking at these two slides again, they're actually pretty good for understanding MOL what/when. I don't think I fully appreciated them because they're not drawn the way you would really draw them today--no thought balloons and more like a Gantt Chart.
They provide some interesting ways to approach the topic, although I'd have to dig through documents to confirm. For instance, look at the top middle of the 1965 slide, where it refers to "AF Developed Lab." That raises the question to what extent MOL was really a USAF program from late 1963 until mid-1965 when they brought in the results of the optical systems studies. Was USAF just looking at whatever they could do and meanwhile NRO was off studying stuff, but not actively involved in MOL? Also, what were those optical studies and do they still exist?
1. Focusing of the research to covert imaging, which as we saw in Carl Berger's 1970 history was done in Feb March1964 and which resulted in part from/required discussions between DNRO McMillan and Schriever. In the pdf of Berger, doc #800 in MOL 2015 release, it is pp 69-73. It needed the DORIAN keyword which I think was created at that time. The internal SAFSP scepticism/dissent was thus about a report they had done as part of this process.
"Focusing" doesn't mean that no other BYEMAN research was done, e.g. SIGINT.
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.
One interesting question is what was the difference between the Air Force studying "large experimental optics" for MOL and the studies that were underway on MOL for reconnaissance?
One interesting question is what was the difference between the Air Force studying "large experimental optics" for MOL and the studies that were underway on MOL for reconnaissance?I really don't know the big picture answer
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 ... that does go further back and adds to the picture. It's from Aerospace in August 67 and describes their work from 1960 ... 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.
During one particularly momentous press conference on December 10, 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced both the death of the Dyna-Soar space plane and the birth of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL)
...
A few days before Secretary McNamara's announcement, a team of representatives from the Air Force Space Systems Division and Aerospace flew to Washington, DC, to review several possible implementations of MOL. Consultation with other NASA and Department of Defense (DOD) personnel produced a working sketch of the program. Planners envisioned a pressurized laboratory module, approximately the size of a small house trailer, that would enable up to four Air Force crewmembers to operate in a "shirt-sleeve" environment. The laboratory would be attached to a modified Gemini capsule and boosted into near-Earth orbit by an upgraded Titan III. Astronauts would remain in the capsule until orbit and then move into the laboratory. In addition to military reconnaissance duties (still largely classified), the astronauts would conduct a variety of scientific experiments and assess the adaptability of humans in a long-duration space environment (up to four weeks in orbit). When their mission was complete, they would return to the capsule, which would separate from the laboratory and return to Earth. Launch facilities would be located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to permit launch into polar orbit for overflight of the Soviet Union.
Planners agreed that the use of existing Gemini technologies would make MOL's acceptance easier for those in Congress who were concerned about additional defense spending and those within the space community who worried that a concurrent Air Force space program could slow down work on the Apollo program, possibly endangering the U.S. effort to beat the Soviets to the moon. The press release announcing the startup of MOL stressed cooperation with NASA to emphasize that the Air Force was not embarking on an entirely solo project: "The MOL program will make use of existing NASA control facilities. These include the tracking facilities which have been set up for the Gemini and other space flight programs of NASA and of the Department of Defense throughout the world. The laboratory itself will conduct military experiments involving manned use of equipment and instrumentation in orbit and, if desired by NASA, for scientific and civilian purposes." NASA continued to provide a great deal of logistical support to MOL over the course of the program's lifetime.
Following McNamara's announcement, Aerospace immediately began work as part of the concept study phase. At the beginning of 1964, seven Aerospace scientists and 19 engineers developed possible experiments for MOL and worked to define possible MOL configurations as well as vehicle and subsystems concepts. On February 1, 1964, the Air Force Space Command announced the creation of a special MOL management office, headed by Col. Richard Jacobson. Two days later, Aerospace initiated a major organizational restructuring, with Pete Leonard appointed to lead the newly formed Manned Systems Division. The next month, Walt Williams came to Aerospace from NASA to become vice president and general manager of this new division. By the end of the year, the number of Aerospace technical staff members assigned to work directly on MOL had increased to 34. These researchers regularly gave presentations and briefings on their findings in Washington throughout 1964; still, outside the Defense Department, MOL lacked a committed core of government supporters.
The Air Force assigned more research contracts for the MOL laboratory vehicle in early 1965, and Aerospace continued studies concerning the future of the military in space. Although the first MOL crew was scheduled to fly sometime between late 1967 and early 1968, full approval of the program was contingent on the DOD's demonstrating a genuine national need to deploy military personnel in space. To facilitate approval, the Defense Department affirmed that NASA's lunar landing program would remain the top priority and that duplicative programs would be avoided, with the Air Force continuing its use of existing hardware and facilities and cooperation with NASA on MOL experiments.
The program finally received formal approval from President Lyndon Johnson on August 25, 1965. Johnson's announcement included a budget of $1.5 billion for MOL development. The MOL program would enable the United States to gain "new knowledge of what man is able to do in space," Johnson said, "and relate that ability to the defense of America." Johnson's approval marked the formal recognition that the Defense Department had a clear mandate to explore the potential applications of piloted spaceflight to support national security requirements.
Following official approval, the MOL program immediately began work on Phase I, which extended from September 1, 1965, to May 1, 1966. After working primarily with the planning for MOL, including the design concepts for the spacecraft, Aerospace now had formal GSE/TD (general systems engineering/technical direction) for both the spacecraft and the Titan IIIC launch vehicle under contract to Air Force Space Systems Division, commanded by Gen. Ben I. Funk. Pete Leonard was appointed head of a new MOL Systems Engineering Office, with Walt Williams as his associate and William Sampson as his assistant. The three were collectively known as "the troika" by Aerospace employees. During Phase I, the Aerospace technical contingent working on MOL more than doubled in size, from 80 to 190. The Air Force's MOL program office had a complex organizational structure, with Gen. Bernard Schriever serving as program director in Washington, DC, and Brig. Gen. Russell Berg, who reported directly to Schriever, acting as deputy at the Space Systems Division in El Segundo, California. To improve administrative efficiency, Aerospace began colocating employees from its MOL Systems Engineering Office with members of the Air Force MOL program office in early 1966.
When Project Gemini successfully concluded, 22 members of that program office were transferred to MOL, where their expert knowledge of Gemini hardware could be effectively used. Some veterans of the Mercury and Gemini programs were disappointed that they would not get to support the Apollo program, which would have been a logical next step if the Air Force had not decided to embark on its own piloted space program. In February, Aerospace made another organizational adjustment, reflecting management's belief that MOL would remain a major component of the company's activities. Three directorates were established under the aegis of the MOL Systems Engineering Office: Engineering, led by Sam Tennant, who would later serve as president of Aerospace; Operations, headed by Robert Hansen; and the Planning, Launch Operations, and Test Directorate, led by Ben Hohmann, who had achieved such great success with the Mercury and Gemini programs.
In a reflection of the growing bureaucratic and engineering complexity of MOL, by May 1967, Aerospace had 28 MOL working groups, including software management, environmental control and life support, crew transfer, and ground-systems coordination. The proliferation of bureaucracy, not only at Aerospace but in the Air Force as well, sometimes made the transmission of information difficult. Joe Wambolt, who served as the director of launch operations in Ben Hohmann's directorate, remembers that, "It was almost impossible to find out what another office was doing. No one ever seemed to know the 'big picture' of what was going on. A lot of people knew a great deal about what was happening in their particular offices, but the only person who ever understood everything that was going on in the entire MOL program, in my opinion, was Sam Tennant."
if Aerospace worked for the white USAF and the black NRO
Looking at these two slides again, they're actually pretty good for understanding MOL what/when. I don't think I fully appreciated them because they're not drawn the way you would really draw them today--no thought balloons and more like a Gantt Chart.
<snip>A small oddity in the studies of the Image Velocity Sensor (IVS, which might also have served to compensate some astronaut induced vibrations, and which was essential for automatic operations of the main telescope): someone assigned "Peter, Paul and Mary" as codenames(?) to the contractors ITEK, GOODYEAR, and HYCON.
I think that the biggest surprise we learned about the MOL in the past decade was that there was supposed to be an "unmanned MOL" that would launch as many times as the manned version. As soon as that program was started, it raised the obvious question of why you needed a manned version at all. The astronauts started out filling a small niche purpose that got smaller and smaller as the program progressed.
<snip>
Is there any (good) story on how the codename DORIAN had been picked?
Somebody recently posted these to another site but I'm including them here for completeness. They are MOL documents (mostly declassified in 2015) about the film-scanning system on MOL. I have not gone through them recently, but will do so. I'm not sure if this system was still in the baseline MOL at the time of program cancellation in summer 1969.
UPDATE: I just made a quick scan of the documents and it looks like readout went through a few different phases for MOL:
1964-discussed as a possibility, apparently not included
1967-discussed as a real add-on, to replace the film-return capsule then under development, but apparently not added
1969-investigated in terms of a "poor-man's" system (i.e. could they do it cheaply?), but not clear if it was included
1969-investigated for the "Phase II" MOL configuration for the mid-1970s
If anybody learns more, please post.
Somebody recently posted these to another site but I'm including them here for completeness. They are MOL documents (mostly declassified in 2015) about the film-scanning system on MOL. I have not gone through them recently, but will do so. I'm not sure if this system was still in the baseline MOL at the time of program cancellation in summer 1969.
One thing I'd never seen was mention (grab 2), under command and control, of a STARLIGHT report which recommended "space oriented command ships". Not obvious that this means spaceborne C and C was being meant, but see grab 3, which talks about C and C "posts whether in space or on shipboard".
Somebody recently posted these to another site but I'm including them here for completeness. They are MOL documents (mostly declassified in 2015)
Doc #20 in that group (taken from the large set declassified in 2015 and indexed at the back of the MOL compendium) is an NRL technical panel from 1964. Finally, there's a statement that USN foresees no requirement for "precision delivery" experiments (grab 4).
<snip>
Is this real reasons KH-10 DORIAN was abandon ?
Is this real reasons KH-10 DORIAN was abandon ?
Nixon wanted to cut the budget. NRO was building the KH-9 HEXAGON and the KH-10 MOL/DORIAN. Under the new budget guidelines they could afford only one. They canceled MOL/DORIAN.
We had over in Secret Project Forum in MOL DiskussionFilm resolution should not have been the limiting factor. Kodak's Type 3409/3414 AERECON High Altitude Film has a resolving power of 320 to 630 lines per mm - see attached data sheet and, e.g., the post at https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26821.msg811994#msg811994 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26821.msg811994#msg811994)
a interest argument about DORIAN camera system
in Short:
KH-10 had extreme resolution of 4 inch.
I don't believe the Eastman-Kodak was able to make extrem high resolution analog film for DORIAN.
That It KH-10 camera system using same analog film used on KH-9
But this would reduce drastic the area photograph by Camera at resolution of 4 inch.
Is this real reasons KH-10 DORIAN was abandon ?
Not cost overrun, the unnecessary to be manned,
But because limited Photographic results ?
For MOL I'd be more worried about image smear caused by vibrations (astronauts moving around, cooling pumps, fans of the life support system, etc).
At a recent talk at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, former MOL astronaut Lt. Gen. (ret.) James Abrahamson remarked that in early 1968 the deputy director of the MOL program, Major General J.S. Bleymaier, asked the MOL astronauts for their advice about the program’s goals. Presumably the program was in political and budgetary trouble at this time, which is why the program office developed the chronology that listed the changing program goals, increasing cost, and slipping schedule. Abrahamson said that the astronauts told Bleymaier to promise that MOL would be fully operational on its very first flight. Presumably this meant eliminating the two qualification flights.
Abrahamson said that this turned out to be a mistake, because it caused the schedule to slip by nearly a year—with first launch no longer the December 1970 unmanned spacecraft, but now the August 1971 first manned flight.
<snip>One concern were the thermal expansion coefficients, and hence the stability of the optical quality of the mirrors. In Feb 1968, the baseline mirror material for MOL flights 1 and 2 was fused silica, while R&D for mirrors made of CER-VIT (5.5 time lower thermal expansion coefficient) and ULE (~
But the most intriguing remark is Land's, that "MOL should not be launched with a known optical quality deficiency ... to satisfy a present schedule" (fourth grab).
<snip>
But the most intriguing remark is Land's, that "MOL should not be launched with a known optical quality deficiency ... to satisfy a present schedule" (fourth grab).
This to me casts a new light on the astronauts' comments of 1968 that Blackstar quotes in his piece mentioned just above, i.e.
NRO has revamped their website. The main page looks a lot more corporate. But trying to find their declassified documents is going to be challenging:
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-declassified-major-nro-programs-and-projects/
The "FOIA For All" site appears to be a mess:
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-resources-foia-for-all/
Stops at 2020 and the 2020 site is empty. I still have not found their "Sunshine Week" releases.
NRO has revamped their website. The main page looks a lot more corporate. But trying to find their declassified documents is going to be challenging:
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-declassified-major-nro-programs-and-projects/
The "FOIA For All" site appears to be a mess:
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-resources-foia-for-all/
Stops at 2020 and the 2020 site is empty. I still have not found their "Sunshine Week" releases.
They hinted that "something was going to launch soon" in cryptic tweets. Someone will get a promotion or award for "modernizing the NRO website, vastly increasingly it's usefulness and increasing usability for visitors...'
NRO has revamped their website. The main page looks a lot more corporate. But trying to find their declassified documents is going to be challenging:
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-declassified-major-nro-programs-and-projects/
The "FOIA For All" site appears to be a mess:
https://www.nro.gov/foia-home/foia-resources-foia-for-all/
Stops at 2020 and the 2020 site is empty. I still have not found their "Sunshine Week" releases.
Someone will get a promotion or award for "modernizing the NRO website, vastly increasingly it's usefulness and increasing usability for visitors...'
But the most intriguing remark is Land's, that "MOL should not be launched with a known optical quality deficiency ... to satisfy a present schedule" (fourth grab).
This to me casts a new light on the astronauts' comments of 1968 that Blackstar quotes in his piece mentioned just above, i.e.
They were kinda damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't (there are less polite ways to put this). And it's always fun to read comments by Din Land--you get the sense that he was always critical of the Air Force programs. Maybe he was just as critical of the CIA ones as well, but we seem to have more evidence of him questioning the high-resolution systems.
Somebody recently posted these to another site but I'm including them here for completeness. They are MOL documents (mostly declassified in 2015) about the film-scanning system on MOL. I have not gone through them recently, but will do so. I'm not sure if this system was still in the baseline MOL at the time of program cancellation in summer 1969.
UPDATE: I just made a quick scan of the documents and it looks like readout went through a few different phases for MOL:
1964-discussed as a possibility, apparently not included
1967-discussed as a real add-on, to replace the film-return capsule then under development, but apparently not added
1969-investigated in terms of a "poor-man's" system (i.e. could they do it cheaply?), but not clear if it was included
1969-investigated for the "Phase II" MOL configuration for the mid-1970s
If anybody learns more, please post.
See also doc #372 in same set, we chatted about this a while ago in KH-11 thread, in context of buckets vs readout decisions, see https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.620 and the posts that precede and follow it.
<snip>
Field of view of the primary telescope was 9000 ft diameter (But the most intriguing remark is Land's, that "MOL should not be launched with a known optical quality deficiency ... to satisfy a present schedule" (fourth grab).
This to me casts a new light on the astronauts' comments of 1968 that Blackstar quotes in his piece mentioned just above, i.e.
They were kinda damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't (there are less polite ways to put this). And it's always fun to read comments by Din Land--you get the sense that he was always critical of the Air Force programs. Maybe he was just as critical of the CIA ones as well, but we seem to have more evidence of him questioning the high-resolution systems.
Side question: what was the film format for DORIAN? How wide was the film and how big would each image be? I have to scan the documents again, but do we have a good description of the physical size of the film and how much territory each image would cover?
One other doc that intrigues me and helps set the context of the early 1967 MOL readout question is the attached one, from late 66. It seems to be saying "we interpret the recent ExCom guidance as disallowing work on readout for crisis management, and so quite a few r&d jobs will go, but we will carry on doing research on a long lived routine readout sat". MOL would have sat on the borders of these two types, but would have been closer to the disallowed crisis type in some ways I'd have thought.
One other doc that intrigues me and helps set the context of the early 1967 MOL readout question is the attached one, from late 66. It seems to be saying "we interpret the recent ExCom guidance as disallowing work on readout for crisis management, and so quite a few r&d jobs will go, but we will carry on doing research on a long lived routine readout sat". MOL would have sat on the borders of these two types, but would have been closer to the disallowed crisis type in some ways I'd have thought.
That is intriguing. I knew that FROG had been canceled around 1967 (according to this, late 1966), but did not know why that was. I do remember that FROG was proposed as an "experiment" rather than an operational system in the mid-1960s, and assumed that there was resistance to spending money on an experiment rather than planning for operations.
What the language in that document implies is that in late 1967 there was antipathy to the concept of a crisis response capability provided by FROG and that is why it was canceled. MOL read-out suffered collateral damage from that decision.
i) MOL readout was in fact formally included in the baseline when it was approved, but when Evans tried to find out about progress in March 66 it transpired that not a lot had been done. See https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/213.pdf , attached and first two grabs.
ii) The cancellation of FROG Mk I in late 66 brought an opportunity to rethink readout, and in spring 67 Evans wrote a memo encouraging the replacement of the MOL capsule return vehicle by readout: https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/357.pdf, attached, and third grab
In January 1965, Schriever had appointed Brigadier General Harry L. Evans as his deputy for MOL. Evans had previously worked with Schriever in the USAF Ballistic Systems Division.[41] He had also been the Corona program manager, and had supervised SAMOS, MIDAS and SAINT, together with the early communications and weather satellite programs.[42][43] As well as being Schriever's deputy, Evans became Zuckert's Special Assistant for MOL on 18 January 1965. In this role, he reported directly to Zuckert, and was responsible for liaison between MOL and other agencies such as NASA.[41]
In the wake of Johnson's announcement of the program, MOL was given the designation Program 632A. The USAF announced the appointment of Schriever as MOL director and Evans as vice director, in charge of the MOL staff at the Pentagon, with Brigadier General Russell A. Berg as deputy director, in charge of the MOL staff at the Los Angeles Air Force Station in El Segundo, California.[44] The MOL System Program Office (SPO) was created in March 1964 under Brigadier General Joseph S. Bleymaier, the Deputy Commander of the AFSC Space Systems Division (SSD). By August 1965, the MOL had a staff of 42 military and 23 civilian personnel.[45] Schriever retired from the Air Force in August 1966, and was succeeded as head of the AFSC and MOL Program Director by Major General James Ferguson.[46] Evans retired from the Air Force on 27 March 1968, and was replaced by Major General James T. Stewart.[47]
One thing that struck me was the sheer managerial complexity of MOL.
That's why I really wonder about the attitudes towards MOL within the NRO. What did the guys working on the SIGINT payloads and GAMBIT think about MOL? Did they think it was a good idea, or a huge waste of resources, or somewhere in between? I could see somebody wanting to upgrade GAMBIT looking at MOL and thinking "If only I had the money that they are spending on X, I could get my upgrade funded."
But there may also have been a few people who thought it might offer a creative way to demosntrate things that couldn't be done elsewhere.
Indeed, and we also know about a letter, quoted upthread, from Marshall Carter, director of NSA to Flax in late 66 about combined optical and SIGINT sensors where Carter basically says "I support it for MOL, but couldn't we put it on an uncrewed satellite". I guess I still stand by my point that it was helpful in hatching ideas but you are right in general.But there may also have been a few people who thought it might offer a creative way to demosntrate things that couldn't be done elsewhere.
Except that we also have quite a bit of evidence that MOL couldn't demonstrate other stuff, because so many other payloads that were first discussed for MOL were thrown off because a) the photographic payload was so large it didn't leave a lot of mass/volume/money for other stuff, and/or b) MOL was moving too slowly to provide opportunities to test that stuff.
DONKEY got removed from MOL and put elsewhere. We know about other experiments like the astronaut maneuvering unit that got kicked off (went to NASA Gemini), and other early proposed payloads like the radar and SIGINT equipment that also got removed.
When you compare the big, lumbering MOL program, which was always slipping schedule and eating money, to what else was going on at NRO, it looks like other people at SAFSP would not be impressed. After all, they were building and deploying Program 989 payloads in under nine months, and satellites like QUILL in a little over a year. If MOL ever launched it would not happen until 1971 or 1972, seven-plus years after it started.
That is quite true. Obvious question, to which I assume we have no answer yet, is whose lunch, i.e exactly how much of the NRO budget was it eating ? More generally there's a question which intrigues me more and more, is how on earth were development costs of RHYOLITE, CANYON, JUMPSEAT, DORIAN, GAMBIT 3, HEXAGON *and* operations of CORONA and GAMBIT *and* R&D on ZAMAN, SDS etc etc all fitted into the no more than 1 billion per year envelope between 66 and 72, say. Did CIA spend some of its own (i.e. not Program B) money on programmes that we know had cost overruns, like HEXAGON and one other, likely RHYOLITE, which were stated to have gone over by factors of 2-3 in the 1971 ExCom transcript ?I'm starting to think that MOL went broadly through two management paradigms:
Indeed, and pretty much what we've seen in Lew Allen's comments on a Perry history https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2458749#msg2458749 which turn out to be Nov 74. See first grab for this part, which he puts even more acerbically, as "many felt it was essential that DOD have some kind of man-in-space effort if the national commitment to Apollo was really going to generate a new era of manned space flight". Ouch ;-) One needs to remember that he was writing this in Nov 1974, six or so month after last Skylab crew landed and with only ASTP between then and whenever Shuttle was to debut. Lew Allen, one feels, would be thinking that manned flight had essentially ended and yet the sky had yet to fall in ...That is quite true. Obvious question, to which I assume we have no answer yet, is whose lunch, i.e exactly how much of the NRO budget was it eating ? More generally there's a question which intrigues me more and more, is how on earth were development costs of RHYOLITE, CANYON, JUMPSEAT, DORIAN, GAMBIT 3, HEXAGON *and* operations of CORONA and GAMBIT *and* R&D on ZAMAN, SDS etc etc all fitted into the no more than 1 billion per year envelope between 66 and 72, say. Did CIA spend some of its own (i.e. not Program B) money on programmes that we know had cost overruns, like HEXAGON and one other, likely RHYOLITE, which were stated to have gone over by factors of 2-3 in the 1971 ExCom transcript ?I'm starting to think that MOL went broadly through two management paradigms:
In the 'early days', MOL existed because "the Air Force needs to put men in space, and we'll figure out why we need to do that later" (or more charitably 'we need a man-in-space programme to find out what we can use men in space for'), but needed an 'official' reason. Pretty much a direct follow-on to Dynasoar.
MOL cycled through reasons to exist until the last one standing was manned earth observation, and that became the second management paradigm,Again agreed, and referred to in second grab from same doc.
added onto the first (that kept the programme alive and funded): "MOL needs to exist to feed NRO staff and contractors with funds over and above the $1bn ceiling". This was a handy reason for MOL to exist, because it was a 'black' reason so harder to be attacked in congress (can't complain about it if you are restricted by where and to who you complain). This was also handy for the NRO as a way to fund vendors to study and work on yet-larger mirrors and spacecraft and launch capabilities and other sundry maybe-useful items, without spending the NRO's own budget on the endeavour.
For those who either did not see the political game at play or did not want to play it out of principle, MOL was a nonsensical programme sapping funds that could have been spent on expanding existing programmes or on programmes with a better reason to exist.
In the end those voices won out (possibly the cancellation of FULCRUM/HEXAGON was the straw that broke the camels back and caused everyone to get behind the push to kill MOL to save the actually needed programme),
but as expected that meant funding for VHR and near-real-time did not end up allocated elsewhere but dried up, with unmanned-DORIAN and HEXADOR both going nowhere (and even Advanced Gambit3 not flying), and a concerted effort was needed to push for ZOSTER and ZAMAN to get funded and to get buy-in from the white-side AF for SDS multi-use (after being burned once before).
That's not to say that MOL was in-and-of-itself a 'good' programme - and in the end it had gone from 'benign growth' to 'cancerous' in nearly killing off HEXAGON - but I'd be willing to bet that without it other programmes would not have benefited from advancements and contractor expertise built up under the banner of MOL and have either taken longer, been less capable, or just never gotten off the ground at all (without big light mirrors being a mostly known quantity, ZAMAN probably would not have been viable).
<snip>Lew Allen reaffirms his views in a 1991 oral history interview:
Indeed, and pretty much what we've seen in Lew Allen's comments on a Perry history https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29545.msg2458749#msg2458749 which turn out to be Nov 74. See first grab for this part, which he puts even more acerbically, as "many felt it was essential that DOD have some kind of man-in-space effort if the national commitment to Apollo was really going to generate a new era of manned space flight". Ouch ;-) One needs to remember that he was writing this in Nov 1974, six or so month after last Skylab crew landed and with only ASTP between then and whenever Shuttle was to debut. Lew Allen, one feels, would be thinking that manned flight had essentially ended and yet the sky had yet to fall in ...
<snip>
Lew Allen reaffirms his views in a 1991 oral history interview:
https://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/203/1/Allen%2C_L._OHO.pdf (https://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/203/1/Allen%2C_L._OHO.pdf)
Doc 620 states that a pick-off of the central 1 inch of the main optics corresponds to 1000 ft. Thus a 9 inch wide film would have covered the field of view.
4 inch ground resolution distance would have required a film with ~120 lines (line pairs?) per mm:
1000 ft *12 inch/ft / (120 lines/mm * 25.4 mm/inch * 1 inch) = 4 inch/line
One of the things we looked at for some time was called Blue Gemini. (...) We worked all of that to show that the project was technically kind of neat and could be done pretty well, and then one couldn’t begin quite figuring out why. So that wasn’t done. The MOL—the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program—was the later manifestation of struggling with that, of the military’s trying to get a manned program under way without ever, to this day, having solved the issue of why you really wanted to have it manned.
(...)
So it sounds as if MOL acquired the FROG Mk I technology and ground station as a simple way to fulfill a mission it was already supposed to have, but then when Evans proposed the logical step of deleting the data (not film per se) recovery capsule (after the Apollo fire-I know various folk talked about this upthread) Flax declined to make that change, possibly because of the policy re readout, and/or just couldn't afford it ?
See page 40 toOne of the things we looked at for some time was called Blue Gemini. (...) We worked all of that to show that the project was technically kind of neat and could be done pretty well, and then one couldn’t begin quite figuring out why. So that wasn’t done. The MOL—the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program—was the later manifestation of struggling with that, of the military’s trying to get a manned program under way without ever, to this day, having solved the issue of why you really wanted to have it manned.<snip>
(...)
And if the goal was to do experiments and share the data, why not just have NASA do that and share the data with USAF?
<snip>
My guess is that MOL block 1 was severly data rate limited in the downlink. A 9" inch (circular) diameter film, scanned at 120 lines/mm at 256 grey levels (1 Byte) corresponds to (4.5*25.4*120)^2 * Pi = 600 MByte. If you multiply this by the number of images per orbit you easily get into the 10s of GB range.Doc 620 states that a pick-off of the central 1 inch of the main optics corresponds to 1000 ft. Thus a 9 inch wide film would have covered the field of view.
4 inch ground resolution distance would have required a film with ~120 lines (line pairs?) per mm:
1000 ft *12 inch/ft / (120 lines/mm * 25.4 mm/inch * 1 inch) = 4 inch/line
Sort of catching up with this conversation now. I went through the readout documents I posted up-thread and one of them mentions 9-inch film and a field of view of 9000 feet.
Something that is hinted at in the readout docs, but which I have not seen elsewhere (it could be there) is the need to use the system in a surveillance mode, meaning a lower resolution and presumably covering more area. It's not clear how they would do this. I think that one of the documents mentions the need for 30-inch resolution. That's about 3 feet, and roughly equivalent to the HEXAGON. But I think (without looking at my notes) that this was proposed for the Block II vehicle, so it was not a capability with the Block I.
The document on the Block II vehicle is rather interesting. It dates from May 1969, so about one month before program cancellation, and it includes various things that could be added to the baseline MOL to upgrade its capability. One of the highest priorities was a near-infrared capability. Also discusses a UV astronomy capability, but determines that this would require too much mass and they do not recommend it. (They also note that this is a NASA mission, not NRO.) Block II MOL would increase mission duration from 30 days to 45 days.
My guess is that MOL block 1 was severly data rate limited in the downlink. A 9" inch (circular) diameter film, scanned at 120 lines/mm at 256 grey levels (1 Byte) corresponds to (4.5*25.4*120)^2 * Pi = 600 MByte. If you multiply this by the number of images per orbit you easily get into the 10s of GB range.
See page 40 to5966 in the PDF attached to
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=38317.msg2248771#msg2248771 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=38317.msg2248771#msg2248771)
The memo "Review of Gemini 5 Photography" details the "ordeals" of an intelligence officer in his dealings with a particular NASA astronaut - and NASA in general - on the matter of sensitive reconnaissance photography ;)
P.S.: Maybe USAF just tried to avoid getting into regular "fist fights" with NASA astronauts? :o ::) :-\
So readout is apparently part of the baseline system, and early on it is being studied by Kodak and GE. But by spring 1966 they apparently have not made a lot of progress. Meanwhile, some other contractors are working on their own tech. Philco did it on their own, and showed it off to the MOL program office. But more importantly, CBS was working on it for FROG. So by late 1966, the CBS system apparently becomes the baseline readout system for MOL.With my cynical budget hat on: the cancellation of FROG mk.1 and the baselining of readout into MOL occurring around the same time would mean that the work at contractors on scanning, data transmission, and reproduction systems was able to continue, but being funded by the AF rather than the NRO. This clearly did not work out as intended (after MOL's cancellation FROG never got a second chance, being outcompeted with electrooptical systems development by the time budget was available for a new system), but being able to fund your R&D from someone else's pocketbook whilst your own ever-shrinking budget - $1 Bn stretches less and less each year with inflation - only needs to pay for operational systems was probably a very attractive idea, despite MOL ending up as a real boondoggle. Being burnt by MOL would also explain why the NRO and AF were so resistant to joining forces for SDS, and why the NRO resisted getting heavily invested into STS.
And then it gets a bit weird in spring 1967. The MOL program was carrying two systems for earlier return of data--the "data return vehicle" (a modified CORONA reentry vehicle), and the readout system. Apparently both were included in the baseline MOL, although I don't know with certainty that this meant that the plan was to carry both systems, or if it meant that there was mass and volume to carry one or the other system. I think the plan was to carry both systems on MOL.
But this didn't make a heck of a lot of sense. If the readout system worked, then the DRV was unnecessary. It was just added cost and mass and risk. So it appears that by spring 1967 the MOL program office (several memos) was leaning towards canceling the DRV in favor of the readout system. That seems rather logical, although I would note that the DRV could return 60 pounds of film to Earth and deleting it meant that film could not be returned.
[...]
I don't know if I fully understand the inclusion and then deletion of readout, but what I understand so far is in many ways emblematic of the overall MOL program, where they didn't really know what they were doing or why, but were hoping to figure it out once they started flying.
I tend to agree, but I do wonder if we will ever get any truly clear acknowledgement of this other than things like the doc I was talking about here (and which Libra may have spotted, I don't recall): https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2510474#msg2510474 and attached pdf.So readout is apparently part of the baseline system, and early on it is being studied by Kodak and GE. But by spring 1966 they apparently have not made a lot of progress. Meanwhile, some other contractors are working on their own tech. Philco did it on their own, and showed it off to the MOL program office. But more importantly, CBS was working on it for FROG. So by late 1966, the CBS system apparently becomes the baseline readout system for MOL.With my cynical budget hat on: the cancellation of FROG mk.1 and the baselining of readout into MOL occurring around the same time would mean that the work at contractors on scanning, data transmission, and reproduction systems was able to continue, but being funded by the AF rather than the NRO. This clearly did not work out as intended (after MOL's cancellation FROG never got a second chance, being outcompeted with electrooptical systems development by the time budget was available for a new system), but being able to fund your R&D from someone else's pocketbook whilst your own ever-shrinking budget - $1 Bn stretches less and less each year with inflation - only needs to pay for operational systems was probably a very attractive idea, despite MOL ending up as a real boondoggle.
And then it gets a bit weird in spring 1967. The MOL program was carrying two systems for earlier return of data--the "data return vehicle" (a modified CORONA reentry vehicle), and the readout system. Apparently both were included in the baseline MOL, although I don't know with certainty that this meant that the plan was to carry both systems, or if it meant that there was mass and volume to carry one or the other system. I think the plan was to carry both systems on MOL.
But this didn't make a heck of a lot of sense. If the readout system worked, then the DRV was unnecessary. It was just added cost and mass and risk. So it appears that by spring 1967 the MOL program office (several memos) was leaning towards canceling the DRV in favor of the readout system. That seems rather logical, although I would note that the DRV could return 60 pounds of film to Earth and deleting it meant that film could not be returned.
[...]
I don't know if I fully understand the inclusion and then deletion of readout, but what I understand so far is in many ways emblematic of the overall MOL program, where they didn't really know what they were doing or why, but were hoping to figure it out once they started flying.
Being burnt by MOL would also explain why the NRO and AF were so resistant to joining forces for SDS, and why the NRO resisted getting heavily invested into STS.
With my cynical budget hat on: the cancellation of FROG mk.1 and the baselining of readout into MOL occurring around the same time would mean that the work at contractors on scanning, data transmission, and reproduction systems was able to continue, but being funded by the AF rather than the NRO. This clearly did not work out as intended (after MOL's cancellation FROG never got a second chance, being outcompeted with electrooptical systems development by the time budget was available for a new system), but being able to fund your R&D from someone else's pocketbook whilst your own ever-shrinking budget - $1 Bn stretches less and less each year with inflation - only needs to pay for operational systems was probably a very attractive idea, despite MOL ending up as a real boondoggle. Being burnt by MOL would also explain why the NRO and AF were so resistant to joining forces for SDS, and why the NRO resisted getting heavily invested into STS.
With my cynical budget hat on: the cancellation of FROG mk.1 and the baselining of readout into MOL occurring around the same time would mean that the work at contractors on scanning, data transmission, and reproduction systems was able to continue, but being funded by the AF rather than the NRO. This clearly did not work out as intended (after MOL's cancellation FROG never got a second chance, being outcompeted with electrooptical systems development by the time budget was available for a new system), but being able to fund your R&D from someone else's pocketbook whilst your own ever-shrinking budget - $1 Bn stretches less and less each year with inflation - only needs to pay for operational systems was probably a very attractive idea, despite MOL ending up as a real boondoggle. Being burnt by MOL would also explain why the NRO and AF were so resistant to joining forces for SDS, and why the NRO resisted getting heavily invested into STS.
From 1965-1966, readout was part of the baseline MOL design, it's just that it was apparently not progressing very far. Eastman Kodak and GE were the contractors doing readout at that time. Starting in 1966, it appears that the Kodak/GE work on readout ended, and the CBS work that was going on for FROG was substituted into the MOL baseline. And there is no indication that the first stuff was funded by NRO and the second version was funded by Air Force. It appears that the readout work was always funded by NRO, at least up to 1967.
Simply put, from what I can tell based upon the documents I have looked at: a) readout was always in the baseline MOL until late 1967, when it was "deferred" (although the mass and volume margin was still retained in the MOL design), and b) it was always funded by NRO.
But despite the program office's decision, the DRV is not canceled and in late 1967 the readout system is canceled, for reasons that are not explained in the documents that I have looked at, but probably have to do with cost.
Something that I see hinted at in some of the documents is that there was no clear idea of how or when to use the readout system. One document implies that it was being included for testing purposes, not for operational intelligence purposes. And other documents indicate that use of the readout system would have been planned from the ground. In other words, they did not intend to leave it up to the astronauts to decide what photos to send down by readout. That seems to be an inherent contradiction, because one of the points of having astronauts onboard is to use their judgement on intelligence collection, but the readout system is being discussed in some documents as if they don't really know how or when or why it will be used, they'll figure this out once the program is operating. So maybe DNRO Al Flax was aware of this and thought we need to start saving money on this expensive MOL program, and nobody really knows how we are going to use the readout system, so that's an obvious thing to cut.
I don't know if I fully understand the inclusion and then deletion of readout, but what I understand so far is in many ways emblematic of the overall MOL program, where they didn't really know what they were doing or why, but were hoping to figure it out once they started flying.
I would still strongly suggest reading Evans' arguments, they seem to me to be less vague or at least more sensible than your characterisation:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2510925#msg2510925
He sounds to me like someone who is expecting more crises and who thinks that having readout on MOL will prove itself when given a chance.
I remain curious about the GLO system shown in GE's advanced MOL planning slides from around time of cancellation: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2866/1 see grabs below.
I would still strongly suggest reading Evans' arguments, they seem to me to be less vague or at least more sensible than your characterisation:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2510925#msg2510925
He sounds to me like someone who is expecting more crises and who thinks that having readout on MOL will prove itself when given a chance.
What I meant is that this is still an example of "We'll fly it first and figure out if we need it," rather than "We need it, so we're building it, even if we don't fully know how we're going to use it." Evans is not the USIB or the Land Panel or the CIA. He was a program-level official, not a national-level official.
He then joined the Ballistic Missile Division as program director of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. In November 1960, he became vice director of the Samos Project Office in El Segundo, California.[2][3] He was also deputy director of Program A, the Air Force component of the National Reconnaissance Office.[4]
[...]
In November 1962, Evans became chief of the Requirements and Development Division in J-5 (Plans and Policy) Division of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at The Pentagon in Washington, DC.
Also, if you simply consider the flight rate, they were thinking of two manned MOL missions per year, for 30 days duration. So that's really only two months of readout per year, and really less because readout would be a secondary MOL mission compared to the primary mission of doing technical intelligence collection (i.e. taking high-resolution photos of hardware and installations).
But the problem becomes sort of obvious once you think about it a bit (as Lew Allen indicated in his interview): what were the USAF astronauts going to do?
Wouldn't readout work after the Gemini was landed ? Or were they expecting to deorbit the whole thing immediately-which seems i) remarkably wasteful and ii) a clear giveaway about what its (supposedly covert) mission was ?
[Edit: Or was readout something that a crew member had to do manually ?]
[Edit 2: But I guess encrypted transmission after crew departure would also say something.]
Considering the state of automation back then, maybe it was a desire to keep a man in the loop for unanticipated real-time decisions/adjustments? And, of course, to keep a finger in the pie and control of the project so someone else would not jump it and take it over.
Wouldn't readout work after the Gemini was landed ? Or were they expecting to deorbit the whole thing immediately-which seems i) remarkably wasteful and ii) a clear giveaway about what its (supposedly covert) mission was ?
[Edit: Or was readout something that a crew member had to do manually ?]
No, it was a manual system. They had to take the photos with the DORIAN camera, process the film, select the portion of the image to scan and cut it out of the film, and feed it through the scanner.
Thanks. One of those things that seems extraordinary from 2023 and yet may have seemed quite reasonable to many at the time. A bit like changing valves (tubes) on Arthur C Clarke's comsat space stations in 1945.
Interesting post-cancellation memo on rationale for VHR, see grabs below and attached, from https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/772.pdf
Interesting comment re silo hardness as a spurious rationale, and mention of Selin and Sorrel(s) - I wonder who they were ?
Interesting post-cancellation memo on rationale for VHR, see grabs below and attached, from https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/772.pdf
Interesting comment re silo hardness as a spurious rationale, and mention of Selin and Sorrel(s) - I wonder who they were ?
That is a really interesting memo for a lot of reasons. First, it's a discussion of VHR. Second, it mentions some studies on VHR (which I guess I should FOIA). But finally, it makes a great point that if you know you are going to produce a sloppy/bad answer, maybe you should not do it at all, because that can provoke a reaction that you may not want.
I've told this story before, but back in the latter 1990s I interviewed a guy who worked for NPIC and who was involved in briefing vice president Hubert Humphrey when he visited NPIC at the Washington Navy Yard in 1967. (A few years ago NRO declassified a document that confirmed this visit, and I was thrilled to see that.)
The guy told me a story about how the Director of Central Intelligence was there during the MOL briefing and at one point he jotted something down on a piece of paper and slid it in front of the VP who looked at it, folded it in half, and did not say anything. The briefing continued, and Humphrey asked some pointed questions about MOL. Then it ended and everybody left the room to go see stuff. The guy lingered until everybody was gone, and then he grabbed the piece of paper that Humphrey had left. On it the DCI had written "Why four inches?" In other words, he wanted the VP to ask why MOL's resolution goal was four inches?
Now extrapolating from this a bit, we can assume that the DCI did not think such high resolution was necessary, or at least not necessary at MOL's cost.
So put that in context with the above memo and it fits rather well, doesn't it? It confirms that there was real doubt within the intelligence community that very high resolution had any value. What intelligence questions could VHR answer? There were probably a few, but maybe even the few that people commonly stated were dubious.
Food for thought. Another rabbit hole for me to fall down.
While you are going down the rabbit hole, here's the Selin memo, #665 in the MOL set, that hoku drew our attention to a while back. See attached, and second grab, from https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/mol/665.pdf
At least some of the problem in unraveling this is that we don't know the goal and actual resolution for the GAMBIT-3. I think that the goal resolution for GAMBIT-3 when it was started was 12-inches. But there is some indication that it took them a while to reach that (maybe 1970 or 1971?). And they only got better over the 1970s. We just don't know what the resolution was in 1969, 1970, 1971 and so on. I think that one of the key improvements in GAMBIT-3 resolution came in the 1970s with the development of better film.
Fair enough. Though interesting to see from Wiki page what sort of roles he had held before this one:QuoteHe then joined the Ballistic Missile Division as program director of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. In November 1960, he became vice director of the Samos Project Office in El Segundo, California.[2][3] He was also deputy director of Program A, the Air Force component of the National Reconnaissance Office.[4]
[...]
In November 1962, Evans became chief of the Requirements and Development Division in J-5 (Plans and Policy) Division of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at The Pentagon in Washington, DC.
which would presumably have given him a pretty broad perspective.
Fair enough. Though interesting to see from Wiki page what sort of roles he had held before this one:QuoteHe then joined the Ballistic Missile Division as program director of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. In November 1960, he became vice director of the Samos Project Office in El Segundo, California.[2][3] He was also deputy director of Program A, the Air Force component of the National Reconnaissance Office.[4]
[...]
In November 1962, Evans became chief of the Requirements and Development Division in J-5 (Plans and Policy) Division of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at The Pentagon in Washington, DC.
which would presumably have given him a pretty broad perspective.
I should have responded to this earlier. I'm not implying that Evans was not intelligent or experienced.
I'm also not saying that he was wrong. My point is that he was a program manager trying to justify this part of the program. That is different than a stated requirement coming from the user community, or the part of the intelligence community that was tasked with establishing requirements.
I actually agree that if they had put readout on MOL (assuming that MOL would have flown), they quite possibly would have figured out useful ways to use it. That said, MOL's greatest strength was that it was a powerful camera system, and it seems to me that they should have wanted to maximize that aspect of the system. Trying to also turn it into a near-real-time reconnaissance system seems like it was diluting MOL's core strength.
On a related topic, did you have a PDF of the Baird memo you mention here https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3818/1 that could be shared here ? Doesn't seem to be on the NRO site unless I am looking in wrong place ?
He was indeed a programme manager, but I am not sure that justifying this part of the programme i.e. readout was his primary motivation. There's another, earlier memo that we've seen a while ago that imo shows him genuinely concerned that the MOL programme isn't broad enough. See grabs below, and attached, and https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/199.pdf. I don't think he is just trying to make the overt part look like the programme which has already been announced-it sounds to me as if he thinks it actually needs to be a Manned Orbiting Laboratory and not just a carrier for DORIAN's KH-10 camera. I think the March 67 memo dovetails nicely with this, but that it may thus also be a factor in Flax's inaction. Interestingly he claimed Schriever shared his concerns (last grab), this might be a bureaucratic manoeuver or might be quite true. He seems imho quite astutely to feel it needs overt USAF buy-in to keep it in being.
He was indeed a programme manager, but I am not sure that justifying this part of the programme i.e. readout was his primary motivation. There's another, earlier memo that we've seen a while ago that imo shows him genuinely concerned that the MOL programme isn't broad enough. See grabs below, and attached, and https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/199.pdf. I don't think he is just trying to make the overt part look like the programme which has already been announced-it sounds to me as if he thinks it actually needs to be a Manned Orbiting Laboratory and not just a carrier for DORIAN's KH-10 camera. I think the March 67 memo dovetails nicely with this, but that it may thus also be a factor in Flax's inaction. Interestingly he claimed Schriever shared his concerns (last grab), this might be a bureaucratic manoeuver or might be quite true. He seems imho quite astutely to feel it needs overt USAF buy-in to keep it in being.
[I'm going to re-state the obvious below. Forgive me.]
This is an inherent problem with MOL that it faced for its entire existence. As a narrowly-focused program to just take high-res pictures, was it worth the cost? But if it was instead conceived more broadly in terms of tech development, it was harder to answer the question of what it was supposed to do and why that would be worth the cost. Evans may have been arguing in favor of spreading out MOL's utility a bit more, but was that going to increase support for MOL or risk the support it already had?
I think MOL's cost and schedule slips just exaggerated all of these issues. If it was cheaper and on schedule, they would have felt less pressure.
The final answer comes down to what happened by June 1969 when the Nixon administration decided that NRO (and USAF) could fund one big IMINT system, but not two. Which one had more usefulness to the national leadership, HEXAGON or MOL? HEXAGON, despite its development problems, had a clearly-defined mission, a clearly-defined reason for being. MOL/DORIAN did not. At that point, they were both judged in terms of their value as intelligence collection systems, not in terms of their potential to do anything else.
Considering the state of automation back then, maybe it was a desire to keep a man in the loop for unanticipated real-time decisions/adjustments? And, of course, to keep a finger in the pie and control of the project so someone else would not jump it and take it over.
Let me state it more broadly: what were the astronauts going to do that required them to be there and could not be done robotically?
USAF started out with a list of things, but kept crossing them off as the automatic systems kept improving. They were things like:
-fix malfunctioning equipment (as reliability increased quickly, this was no longer necessary)
-manually adjust the focus of the camera (auto-focus systems were developed)In this context I was really intrigued by the RAND work as early as 1959 on automatic shutoff when clouds were present-posted in SDS thread.
-select the best targets of opportunity (just add in more film and take more photos)
For more on that, take a look at my Space Review articles on the value of man in MOL.
But overall, this was the problem that plagued the military astronaut program throughout the 1960s. The USAF kept looking for a military mission that required astronauts and they could not come up with a satisfactory answer. That's why Dyna-Soar, Blue Gemini, and MOL all got canceled.
This is an interesting question, actually, because although reliability did indeed increase dramatically, it was still an issue through to mid 70s. Although redacted the list of "failures and anomalies" https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/sigintphaseii/SC-2017-00007iiii.pdf from July 68 (CANYON?) to about 73 confirms this. The question presumably is value for money from in situ repairs, right ?
This is an interesting question, actually, because although reliability did indeed increase dramatically, it was still an issue through to mid 70s. Although redacted the list of "failures and anomalies" https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/sigintphaseii/SC-2017-00007iiii.pdf from July 68 (CANYON?) to about 73 confirms this. The question presumably is value for money from in situ repairs, right ?
I think it's a very complicated question, because it also includes the issue of designing the system that could fail to be repairable by astronauts. If something breaks but the astronauts cannot reach it, or requires analysis and repair equipment (soldering in space?), then simply having an astronaut onboard does not help.
Of course, this then leads into the justification for the space shuttle in the 1970s. The ability to do repair and servicing with the shuttle was a primary justification for building it. But as we now know with the history of the shuttle, that capability was rarely used, and it came with limitations and high costs.
Trying to step back and look at the whole issue, and not just MOL, I think that one of the problems is that the robotic systems and their design and development (and replacement) always moved at a faster pace than the human systems. We saw that with MOL and we saw that with shuttle--by the time the human system was available, the reliability and design of the robotic systems improved substantially. Taking the later example of shuttle, one could compare the reliability of robotic spacecraft in 1972 when the shuttle was approved to the reliability of robotic spacecraft in 1982, when the shuttle was declared operational.
.. Newly strengthened, its counterpart within the OMB became the Evaluation Division, with the economist William Niskanen as its director.
Niskanen, from the University of Chicago, counted himself as a disciple of the economist Milton Friedman, a leading advocate of the free market and a strong critic of government programs. Niskanen himself went on to build a reputation as a supporter of tax cuts, heading the libertarian Cato Institute. He did not love the Shuttle in 1971, and his criticisms were blunt. He dismissed out of hand the Aerospace Corp.’s mission models: “My impression is that the mission models that NASA is projecting for the 1980s are unrealistic. They start at a number that strains credibility and go up from there.”
The Mathematica report had tried to make such models appear plausible by noting that “the 1964-1969 U.S. traffic equivalent is represented by an annual traffic of 51 Space Shuttle flights.” This was close to the 57 flights per year of the baseline mission model. Because a rising tide lifts all boats, NASA’s flight rates during the 1960s had been buoyed powerfully by the agency’s generous budgets. The OMB had no intention of granting such largesse during the 1970s. In addition to this, the Air Force had flown large numbers of Corona reconnaissance satellites, modest in size. These were about to give way to the much larger Big Bird, which would fly far less frequently.
Niskanen also struck at the heart of NASA’s rationale for the Shuttle, as he rejected the idea that payload effects would lead to large cost savings: “A large part of the presumed savings come from relaxed design, repair, and refurbishment of satellites. I was struck, however, with the fact that payload design is so far down the road — in miniaturization, sophistication, and reliability — that you wouldn’t get manufacturers or users to go for much relaxation.” [John Mauer interview, Willis Shapley, October 26, 1984, p. 29; National Journal, August 12, 1972, p. 1296; Who’s Who in Economics (1986), p. 641; Morgenstern and Heiss, Analysis, May 31, 1971, p. 0-37.]
The payload-effects concept amounted to asserting that the Shuttle indeed would meet its cost goals, including cost per flight as low as $4.6 million, and hence would spark a revolution in spacecraft design. The first statement was a speculation; the second then amounted to a speculation that rested on a speculation. Moreover, while payload effects drew strong enthusiasm from a coterie of supporters, this concept flew in the face of the hard-won lessons through which engineers indeed had learned to build reliable spacecraft.
Much of this experience had accumulated within Lockheed itself, which had struggled through a dozen failures in the Corona program, during 1959 and 1960, before finally achieving success. “It was a most heartbreaking business,” Richard Bissell, the program manager within the CIA, would later recall. “In the case of a [reconnaissance] satellite you fire the damn thing off and you’ve got some telemetry, and you never get it back. You’ve got no hardware. You never see it again, and you have to infer from telemetry what went wrong. Then you make a fix, and if it fails again you know you’ve inferred wrong. In the case of Corona it went on and on.” [Ruffner, ed., Corona, pp. 16-24; Mosley, Dulles, p. 432.]
[...]
Such experiences [i.e. those of Lockheed and JPL] flew in the face of the payload effects concept, which amounted to asserting that spacecraft of the future would resemble stereo systems assembled from components. Yet there also was excellent reason to believe that even if the users of satellites were in a position to do so, they would not want to pursue payload effects.
On-orbit refurbishment of spacecraft represented an important aspect of payload effects. NASA’s Joseph McGolrick noted that “the users that were contacted indicated no interest in doing that. Usually, what you were talking about was a satellite that was at the end of its life or was partway through its life, and they really didn’t want it back. It was, effectively, garbage.” Refurbishment on the ground was even less promising: “you’re bringing back junk and relaunching, and you’ve got an extra launch in there to be paid for.”
On-orbit checkout of payloads was another important concept. It drew fire from NASA’s Philip Culbertson, Director of Advanced Manned Missions:
We asked the communications satellite people if they expected to check their payloads out in low earth orbit. And the answer came back that they would not anticipate doing an extensive test of the satellites, if for no other reason than that would require deploying solar arrays and then retracting them and putting them back together again. They felt that the benefit from that was outweighed by the additional risks that they would go through in going through that additional deployment and retraction. [John Mauer interviews: Joseph McGolrick, October 24, 1984, pp. 34-36; Philip Culbertson, October 29, 1984, p. 15.]"
Furthermore, by the 1990s almost nobody was talking about using astronauts to repair robotic spacecraft because their lifetimes and reliability had continued to improve substantially. Taking that to today, we have seen that the whole field is shifting a bit further. In the case of megaconstellations of satellites, the operators accept a higher failure rate and simply make up for it with numbers. The idea of having astronauts repair anything other than their own spacecraft is no longer discussed at all.
But I'm having trouble coming up with a good title for the article. My working title has been "Faxing from space..." but I don't like that. If anybody has a clever and descriptive title for my article on this, please let me know.
A variant on beam me down Scotty suggests itself;-)
A variant on beam me down Scotty suggests itself;-)
I used to use a lot of Babylon 5 episode titles, because they often played on the concept of darkness and light, which worked really well when describing secret projects.
"The Geometry of Shadows" works for the actual flying-spot process, laser or CRT (measuring how much light is occluded from a source over a given area of film).A variant on beam me down Scotty suggests itself;-)
I used to use a lot of Babylon 5 episode titles, because they often played on the concept of darkness and light, which worked really well when describing secret projects.
We expect that the cancellation of Dyna-Soar. plus the expansion of ASSET, plus the Gemini X programme, inclusive of the Manned Orbital Laboratory, will result in expenditure of savings of approximately $I00 million during the next 18 months,Attached, and originally from Spaceflight 1964-05: Vol 6 Iss 3, page 74 which you can read here https://archive.org/details/sim_spaceflight_1964-05_6_3
"The Geometry of Shadows" works for the actual flying-spot process, laser or CRT (measuring how much light is occluded from a source over a given area of film).A variant on beam me down Scotty suggests itself;-)
I used to use a lot of Babylon 5 episode titles, because they often played on the concept of darkness and light, which worked really well when describing secret projects.
This could go in a bunch of different threads, but since we were recently discussing near-real-time reconnaissance satellites in this thread, I'm going to drop it here. Bart will probably put it in the Russian thread too.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4646/1
Soviet television reconnaissance satellites
by Bart Hendrickx
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Starting in the early 1960s, the Soviet Union launched hundreds of photoreconnaissance satellites that returned exposed film back to Earth in capsules. It was not until 1982 that the country orbited its first electro-optical reconnaissance satellite, capable of sending imagery back to Earth in near real time. As a stopgap measure, proposals were tabled in the 1960s and 1970s for achieving the same goal by using reconnaissance satellites carrying television cameras. Such cameras were ultimately flown on two uncrewed versions of the Almaz military space station in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but by that time the technology was already outdated. While some information on these projects has emerged in the past 20 years or so, the details remain sketchy.[1]
I think that the advantage of this approach is that the aperture is much bigger. But it strikes me that the added complexity is a drawback.
I think that the advantage of this approach is that the aperture is much bigger. But it strikes me that the added complexity is a drawback.
Indeed. I can't offhand think of that many spacecraft that use such mounts, even for small cameras, telescopes etc. One of the few exceptions is SBIRS iirc. But I'm hoping you will all correct me ;-) ... I will correct myself to say I think I mean SBIRS High HEO, I will dig out a pic of the sensor when I have a minute.
[Edit: Here is one, from Apil 8th, 2002 in AW and ST, note the yoke, refereed to as the GDA or Gimbal Drive Assembly. ]
Monday my Space Review article will be on the MOL readout system.
Monday my Space Review article will be on the MOL readout system.
I see you are keeping us in suspense re the title ;-)
https://thespacereview.com/article/4654/1Thanks for writing this up! I can see that selecting, cutting, scanning, and downloading that many frames per day could have kept MOL astronauts quite busy. It also might have provided a strong and plausible justification for "man in space".
Live, from orbit: the Manned Orbiting Laboratory’s top-secret film-readout system
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 18, 2023
What good is warning of enemy attack that arrives after the attack has occurred? That was one of the dilemmas facing the operators of American intelligence satellites during the 1960s. The satellites used film, which had to be returned to Earth, processed, and analyzed, which could often be a week or more after the photograph was taken. Some members of the satellite reconnaissance community sought to reduce that time, to get the images to the ground faster. This was the subject of a subsystem for the expensive and complicated Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) of the 1960s, but this aspect of the program has been overlooked since MOL was declassified eight years ago.
<snip>
The system capability was to be up to 160 frame “chips” per day
Thanks for writing this up! I can see that selecting, cutting, scanning, and downloading that many frames per day could have kept MOL astronauts quite busy. It also might have provided a strong and plausible justification for "man in space".
Given the overall workload in the non-automated version of MOL (as we discussed above), I'm still wondering if/how a two men crew might have been able to handle these additional tasks. July missions with the long daytime hours (and hence extended viewing opportunities) at far-northern latitudes would have been particularly gruesome.
I can also understand, though, that having a "crisis capability" only in the months of January and July might not have made a very convincing argument for the additional expense and complexity.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4654/1
Live, from orbit: the Manned Orbiting Laboratory’s top-secret film-readout system
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 18, 2023
What good is warning of enemy attack that arrives after the attack has occurred? That was one of the dilemmas facing the operators of American intelligence satellites during the 1960s. The satellites used film, which had to be returned to Earth, processed, and analyzed, which could often be a week or more after the photograph was taken. Some members of the satellite reconnaissance community sought to reduce that time, to get the images to the ground faster. This was the subject of a subsystem for the expensive and complicated Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) of the 1960s, but this aspect of the program has been overlooked since MOL was declassified eight years ago.
The NRO Director did make the technology available to the Air Force for possible use in reconnaissance aircraft such as the RF-4C Phantom. Although this never transpired, it was used for a ground-based system for scanning and transmitting aerial reconnaissance photos.[3,4]
3- Lieutenant General Joseph R. Holzapple, Deputy Chief of Staff, Research and Development, U.S. Air Force, “Photographic Readout System for Use in Reconnaissance Aircraft,” February 9, 1967, with attached: Director of National Reconnaissance Alexander M. Flax, Memorandum for Lieutenant General Holzapple, AFRD, “Photographic Readout System for Use in Reconnaissance Aircraft,” February 9, 1967. Also attached: “Work Statement: Photographic Film Readout System for Aircraft Applications, Columbia Broadcasting System Laboratories.”
4- Major General Harry L. Evans, Vice Director, MOL Program, Memorandum for Record, “January 5, 1967 MOL Management Meeting,” Jan 16, 1967.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4708/1
Diamonds and DORIANS: The Soviet Union’s Almaz and the United States’ Manned Orbiting Laboratory military space stations (part 1)
by Bart Hendrickx and Dwayne A. Day
Monday, December 11, 2023
https://thespacereview.com/article/4708/1Thanks, nicely researched!
Diamonds and DORIANS: The Soviet Union’s Almaz and the United States’ Manned Orbiting Laboratory military space stations (part 1)
by Bart Hendrickx and Dwayne A. Day
Monday, December 11, 2023
<snip>
Couldn't the Soviets just rely on open data, i.e. gathering US weather info from local radio+TV weather reports/forecasts?
Also, how did the 1964 agreement between the US and USSR on exchanging satellite weather data fit into this?
"The United States and the Soviet Union have been working out an agreement to exchange weather information over a direct communications link between the two capitals. The agreement we have now reached provides for the exchange on a reciprocal basis of weather information gathered by satellites."
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-president-the-agreement-with-the-soviet-union-for-the-exchange-weather
Couldn't the Soviets just rely on open data, i.e. gathering US weather info from local radio+TV weather reports/forecasts?
Also, how did the 1964 agreement between the US and USSR on exchanging satellite weather data fit into this?
"The United States and the Soviet Union have been working out an agreement to exchange weather information over a direct communications link between the two capitals. The agreement we have now reached provides for the exchange on a reciprocal basis of weather information gathered by satellites."
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-president-the-agreement-with-the-soviet-union-for-the-exchange-weather
Both are good questions. However, I suspect that the issues were timeliness and precision. Gathering that data from open US weather reports would not be either timely nor precise, because those reports cover large areas and large timescales. They don't indicate if a specific target area is going to be covered with clouds at a specific time.
Evidence indicated that the Chinese and possibly the North Vietnamese also were processing daytime satellite photos, sometimes, intercepted surface observations reported bad weather when the satellite photos indicated just the opposite. My weather commander commented that this falsification of meteorological information was a violation of the World Metrological Organization Code.
“What would you do if you were bombed on clear days only?” I replied.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4713/1"General Electric also received a contract for $110 million for “experiment integration work,” which included aspects of the highly-classified KH-10 DORIAN optics system. However, Eastman Kodak, which had manufactured both the GAMBIT-1 (KH-7) and GAMBIT-3 (KH-8) camera systems, also was contracted to build the similar but much larger KH-10 system, although the contract amount remains classified. For other robotic reconnaissance programs, the camera system was the largest expense (the KH-9 HEXAGON camera system accounted for over half of the program’s total budget), so the DORIAN system would not have been cheap. "
Diamonds and DORIANS: The Soviet Union’s Almaz and the United States’ Manned Orbiting Laboratory military space stations (part 2)
MOL and Almaz enter active development
by Dwayne A. Day and Bart Hendrickx
Monday, December 18, 2023
The American story
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was initially started by the US Air Force in late 1963, studied throughout 1964, and received presidential authorization by summer 1965. Contract definition, proposal evaluations, and contract negotiations occurred thru late 1966, but by early 1967 it was clear that there was insufficient budget to proceed on the planned schedule and timeline and contract adjustments followed (see “Diamonds and DORIANS: the Soviet Union’s Almaz and the United States’ Manned Orbiting Laboratory military space stations (part 1),” The Space Review, December 11, 2023.) By mid-1967, the program was well underway, with various contractors around the United States building facilities and ramping up work. MOL, and its huge KH-10 DORIAN optical system, became a major military space program for the United States Air Force and the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
Eyeballing the Jan 1969 "MOL budget costs" diagram yields a total of about 1B US$ cost for the "Camera System", i.e. 1/3 of the overall budget (this is from charts presented at a Feb 8, 1969 briefing to DepSecDef).
Eyeballing the Jan 1969 "MOL budget costs" diagram yields a total of about 1B US$ cost for the "Camera System", i.e. 1/3 of the overall budget (this is from charts presented at a Feb 8, 1969 briefing to DepSecDef).
Ah, wonderful! That gibes with my slightly-informed guess. I wrote:
"MOL, though, had the additional expense of all the systems, including the Gemini spacecraft, needed to support the astronauts. At its peak, Kodak had over 1,000 direct and indirect workers on DORIAN."
If we consider that HEXAGON's camera was over half the cost of that program, my reasoning was that the MOL spacecraft, plus the life support systems, plus the Gemini spacecraft, would add up to more than 50% of the cost, and I figured it would add up to 60-65% at least. And that was just guessing without looking at anything.
Now MOL is complicated by the fact that they also were working on an unmanned MOL. That was in many ways the equivalent of building a second spacecraft, and it would have required its own reentry vehicles and command system and film handling system (which probably would have been added to the camera system cost). I'll be discussing unmanned MOL in part 3 in a few weeks.
Something that I recently learned from talking to people is that the big building at Kodak that contained all the DORIAN fabrication and testing equipment (Building 101) was a federally built building, and Kodak only occupied it. I don't know if that means that Kodak or the US government paid for the equipment inside the building. I was told that this was part of Kodak's contract with the government; Kodak did not want to be responsible for infrastructure that was 100% government use. Kodak had other facilities, like film processing, that was mostly commercial, but occasionally used to produce government products (film for reconnaissance missions). So an interesting question is where was the budget for Building 101 kept? Was that in the USAF MOL budget, or some other government agency? (Note: this is not a burning question for me, but it does highlight how expensive MOL was.)
As per my older post, https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2512863#msg2512863 I'm also curious as to just how big MOL was in terms of personnel. The slides below are from #707 in "the MOL set" and date from just before cancellation. They show about 2500 people cleared for DORIAN just in Eastman Kodak, and a total of about 12000 people cleared into DORIAN overall, so one obvious question is how many extra people would be added by the unclassified USAF side ? Another is why the number for Aerospace is relatively small ?
Carl Berger's MOL History from Feb 1970 states that Kodak had almost 1700 MOL personnel at the time of project cancellation."MOL, though, had the additional expense of all the systems, including the Gemini spacecraft, needed to support the astronauts. At its peak, Kodak had over 1,000 direct and indirect workers on DORIAN."
<snip>
As per my older post, https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2512863#msg2512863 I'm also curious as to just how big MOL was in terms of personnel. The slides below are from #707 in "the MOL set" and date from just before cancellation. They show about 2500 people cleared for DORIAN just in Eastman Kodak, and a total of about 12000 people cleared into DORIAN overall, so one obvious question is how many extra people would be added by the unclassified USAF side ? Another is why the number for Aerospace is relatively small ?
<snip>
Something that I recently learned from talking to people is that the big building at Kodak that contained all the DORIAN fabrication and testing equipment (Building 101) was a federally built building, and Kodak only occupied it. I don't know if that means that Kodak or the US government paid for the equipment inside the building. I was told that this was part of Kodak's contract with the government; Kodak did not want to be responsible for infrastructure that was 100% government use. Kodak had other facilities, like film processing, that was mostly commercial, but occasionally used to produce government products (film for reconnaissance missions). So an interesting question is where was the budget for Building 101 kept? Was that in the USAF MOL budget, or some other government agency? (Note: this is not a burning question for me, but it does highlight how expensive MOL was.)
Carl Berger's MOL History from Feb 1970 states that Kodak had almost 1700 MOL personnel at the time of project cancellation."MOL, though, had the additional expense of all the systems, including the Gemini spacecraft, needed to support the astronauts. At its peak, Kodak had over 1,000 direct and indirect workers on DORIAN."
<snip>
As per my older post, https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.msg2512863#msg2512863 I'm also curious as to just how big MOL was in terms of personnel. The slides below are from #707 in "the MOL set" and date from just before cancellation. They show about 2500 people cleared for DORIAN just in Eastman Kodak, and a total of about 12000 people cleared into DORIAN overall, so one obvious question is how many extra people would be added by the unclassified USAF side ? Another is why the number for Aerospace is relatively small ?
<snip>
Something that I recently learned from talking to people is that the big building at Kodak that contained all the DORIAN fabrication and testing equipment (Building 101) was a federally built building, and Kodak only occupied it. I don't know if that means that Kodak or the US government paid for the equipment inside the building. I was told that this was part of Kodak's contract with the government; Kodak did not want to be responsible for infrastructure that was 100% government use. Kodak had other facilities, like film processing, that was mostly commercial, but occasionally used to produce government products (film for reconnaissance missions). So an interesting question is where was the budget for Building 101 kept? Was that in the USAF MOL budget, or some other government agency? (Note: this is not a burning question for me, but it does highlight how expensive MOL was.)
Personnel charged to the project and personnel cleared don't have to be the same. A mechanic in a workshop not necessarily has to be cleared. Folks in administration etc. might be cleared for multiple projects, w/o being charged to a particular project.
Personnel charged to the project and personnel cleared don't have to be the same. A mechanic in a workshop not necessarily has to be cleared. Folks in administration etc. might be cleared for multiple projects, w/o being charged to a particular project.
Personnel charged to the project and personnel cleared don't have to be the same. A mechanic in a workshop not necessarily has to be cleared. Folks in administration etc. might be cleared for multiple projects, w/o being charged to a particular project.
This is true. It also comes down to a particular company's accounting practices. Some companies handled this with managers/admins/etc in these situations charging directly to the contracts. Others created overhead accounts to pay for these folks, with each program/contract that "benefits" from their oversight paying into the overhead kitty, typically a fixed percentage.
It also comes down to whether the numbers are all "real people" or FTEs (full-time equivalents). 10 people in an admin support role (document control, for example), might charge only 10% of their time to any given contract. 10 people at 10% on a DORIAN contract would add up to 1 FTE. Are those numbers reporting 10 people, or one FTE? It's 10 people accessed into that compartment, but budgetarily, only one equivalent person.
Personnel charged to the project and personnel cleared don't have to be the same. A mechanic in a workshop not necessarily has to be cleared. Folks in administration etc. might be cleared for multiple projects, w/o being charged to a particular project.
This is true. It also comes down to a particular company's accounting practices. Some companies handled this with managers/admins/etc in these situations charging directly to the contracts. Others created overhead accounts to pay for these folks, with each program/contract that "benefits" from their oversight paying into the overhead kitty, typically a fixed percentage.
It also comes down to whether the numbers are all "real people" or FTEs (full-time equivalents). 10 people in an admin support role (document control, for example), might charge only 10% of their time to any given contract. 10 people at 10% on a DORIAN contract would add up to 1 FTE. Are those numbers reporting 10 people, or one FTE? It's 10 people accessed into that compartment, but budgetarily, only one equivalent person.
Good points. I had not thought about the FTE issue. When I talked to the Kodak guys one of the things they said was that people with clearances would exit programs and go to work on the commercial side for awhile while maintaining their clearance, and Kodak could then put them back onto a classified project if necessary. I think at least one of the guys left GAMBIT for several years to work on the commercial side, but got called back for a short time to work on a problem with GAMBIT, then went back to commercial work. It was considered one of the strengths of Kodak that they had a huge base of skilled people to use when needed.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4717/1
Diamonds and DORIANS: program troubles, operations, cancellation, and legacy (part 3)
by Bart Hendrickx and Dwayne A. Day
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Great series and great pics. The last one intrigues me, when does it date from ? Shows the VIB and SMAB (e.g. and thus appears to refer to the ITL including pads 40 and 41 at ETR, unless there was originally an expectation that these would also be replicated on the west coast. Would thus seem to date from period when it was still thought some MOL flights would be from ETR (as well as the boilerplate one)-does it ?
Pic also mentions ETR airstrip but does so twice so not quite sure what was meant.
https://thespacereview.com/article/4717/1Very nice to see and read this side-by-side comparison of Almaz and MOL!
Diamonds and DORIANS: program troubles, operations, cancellation, and legacy (part 3)
by Bart Hendrickx and Dwayne A. Day
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
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