![]() "It took over a year to get all the stakeholders involved … to get them to agree to declassification of additional material and then to do the actual line-by-line review," Cameresi said.įormer MOL astronauts taking part in the Oct. Patricia Cameresi, chief of the NRO's Information Review and Release Group, said the declassification of more than 20,000 pages of MOL documents was no easy task. ![]() MOL was born in a Cold War environment in which it was difficult to learn what the United States' adversaries were up to, Outzen said. ![]() "But history allows the opportunity to rediscover and recover facts." "Time often allows for facts to be distorted or forgotten," said James Outzen, chief of historical documentation and research at the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance in Chantilly, Virginia. Would-be MOL crewmembers and other program officials took part in the event, which was called "The Dorian Files Revealed: The Manned Orbiting Laboratory Crew Members' Secret Mission in Space." Air Force, which is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The NRO's release of MOL information was timed for an event held Oct. Notably, there was much reflection regarding the biological and psychological responses of MOL crewmembers in orbit for 30 days or more. Dorian was a superpowerful camera system that could acquire photographic coverage of the Soviet Union and other locations with a resolution better than the best unmanned system at the time, the NRO's first-generation Gambit spacecraft.īut the historical documents suggest numerous other jobs were on the MOL docket for deliberation, including the use of side-looking radar, the evaluation of electronic intelligence-gathering gear and the assembly and servicing of large structures in space.Īlso discussed were the use of MOL-carrying "negation missiles" that would use non-nuclear warheads, the inspection of satellites, and the encapsulation and recovery of enemy spacecraft, which may have been accomplished using rocket-propelled net devices.įor a spacewalking MOL crewmember, a remote maneuvering unit was considered key for approaching and circumnavigating a target while the astronaut remained at a safe distance "to prevent harm from an active defense or booby-trapped target." The anticipated duties of MOL crews included reconnaissance activities under the code name Project Dorian. "Or is it an operational reconnaissance spacecraft? (Or a bomber?)"Įven today, aspects of the MOL initiative remain secret. "Is the MOL a laboratory?" reads one of the newly released documents, which were put out by the U.S. Įarly in the MOL program, its architects weren't quite sure what MOL was all about. While the program never actually lofted a crewed space station, those nearly six years were quite eventful, featuring the selection of 17 MOL astronauts, the remodeling of NASA's two-seat Gemini spacecraft, the development of the Titan-3C launch vehicle and the building of an MOL launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. ![]() The program spent $1.56 billion during that time, according to some estimates. Air Force's MOL program ran from December 1963 until its cancellation in June 1969. A newly released treasure trove of historical data reveals intriguing details about a secret Cold War project known as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |