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).
Quote from: kevin-rf on 10/21/2015 12:33 pmI think the AiQuote from: Dalhousie on 10/21/2015 05:18 amSo 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.
I think the AiQuote from: Dalhousie on 10/21/2015 05:18 amSo 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.
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?
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.
Quote from: Danderman on 11/02/2015 08:20 pmI 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