Download or read book Spies in Space Reflections on National Reconnaissance and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory written by Center for Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-04 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1963, while a student at New York University in its Air Force ROTC program, I was intrigued by a press release by the Air Force. The release had announced that the Air Force was developing something called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). It was a program being developed to ". . . increase the Defense Department effort to determine military usefulness of men in space." This was a new domain for ROTC students to explore--Astronauts with a military mission! While I, my fellow students, and the public saw this merely as another major move forward by the US in its very public "space race" with the Soviet Union, little did we know that there was a hidden, highly classified aspect to the MOL effort. It was "Dorian," a deeply classified program managed by the then darkly hidden agency of the Intelligence Community, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).Fifty-two years later, on 22 October 2015 I had the honor of meeting five of these NRO astronauts (James Abrahamson, Karol Bobko, Albert Crews, Bob Crippen, and Richard Truly), along with the program's technical director, Michael Yarymovych. These five pioneering individuals were members of a panel that I was moderating at the National Museum of the United States Air Force (NMUSAF) in Dayton, OH.The compendium included Carl Berger's earlier MOL history, which is a record of the administrative efforts to develop and sustain the MOL Program. This current book, Spies in Space--Reflections on National Reconnaissance and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, goes well beyond that. The CSNR Oral Historian, Courtney Homer, conducted many hours of research, with a focus on oral history interviews. She based this new history on those interviews, as well as the findings from her additional documentary research.This book offers the reader a window into the experiences and insight of those who were training to be America's spies in space during the Cold War. It is the recollections of those who lived the Dorian and MOL experience.

Download or read book Spies in Space written by Courtney J V Homer and published by Nimble Books. This book was released on 2023-12-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the world of deeply classified military projects, "never-weres" and "might have beens" can shed great light on what actually has been happening behind the scenes. The Manned Orbital Laboratory, a secret project that was cancelled in 1969, illustrates that for more than sixty years, the US government has been energetically seeking persistent, easily-retasked, adaptive, and above all intelligent capabilities for monitoring adversaries from space. For those interested in military space[1], the history offers an essential reference point. If the MOL had flown, it would have been super cool; but the US secured the desired capabilities by other means, many of which are still deep black. This document provides a comprehensive overview of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program, a United States Air Force initiative in the 1960s aimed at developing a manned space platform for military reconnaissance during the Cold War. The document explores the objectives, challenges, and eventual cancellation of the program, as well as the debates and differing opinions surrounding MOL. It discusses concerns about cost, international relations, and the role of humans in space. The document also covers the training program for MOL crew members, their roles and responsibilities, and the development of the MOL system. Personal accounts express shock and disappointment over the program's termination, and mention the consequences such as layoffs and the transfer of MOL crew members to NASA. Overall, this document offers insights into the complexities and controversies surrounding the MOL program. This annotated edition illustrates the capabilities of the AI Lab for Book-Lovers to add context and ease-of-use to manuscripts. It includes five types of abstracts, building from simplest to more complex: TLDR (one word), ELI5, TLDR (vanilla), Scientific Style, and Action Items; four essays to increase viewpoint diversity: Context in the Discourse, Formal Dissent; Red Team Critique; and MAGA Perspective; and Notable Passages and Nutshell Summaries for each page. [1] Indeed, "For All Mankind."-Ed.

Download or read book Spies in Space written by Courtney V. K. Homer and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1963, the Air Force annouced it was developing a program to increase the Defense Department efforts to determine military usefulness in space. This program was called MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory). The program also held a highly classified component called "Dorian," managed by the National Reconnaissance Office. When the NRO declassified all its files on the Dorian and MOL programs in 2015, five astronauts (James Abrahamson, Karol Bobko, Albert Crews, Bob Crippen, and Richard Truly) and the program's technical director, Michael Yarymovych, shared their experiences and insight of being trained to be America's spies in space during the Cold War.

Download or read book Spies in Space written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-30 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report was released by the NRO in May 2019. Between 1965 and 1969, quietly and without fanfare, 17 non-NASA individuals were astronaut-trained in order to meet the reconnaissance needs of the United States. They came from across the military services. Participants in the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program trained tirelessly and worked relentlessly because they believed they could contribute something unique to U.S. reconnaissance efforts and because they all shared a dream of flying in space. The purpose of this book is to offer a first-hand account of the MOL program for the first time. Shrouded in secrecy, the MOL program was declassified by the National Reconnaissance Office in 2015. This is the first opportunity many participants had to share their experiences with anyone outside their small cadres. The bulk of the book is written in their words, taken directly from transcripts of oral history interviews conducted over the last five years with program participants, as well as official documents and transcripts written by the officers who participated in and managed the programs.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.Although the US Air Force announced the MOL project, they did not disclose the primary purpose of the program-to serve as a manned reconnaissance platform in space. Instead, the Air Force disclosed that the platform would be used for space experiments. During the early planning stages of the MOL program, the US Air Force sought a compelling reason for developing the program given NASA's mandate for manned space flight. The newly formed National Reconnaissance Office provided the most compelling reason for a military manned space program, putting a high resolution telescope into space to observe the activities of the Soviet Union and other US adversaries. At the time MOL was under development, the United States had already demonstrated that imagery and signals intelligence from space satellites provided compelling insight to US leaders, including the president. The limitations, especially of photoreconnaissance satellites, included timeliness of the intelligence and capture of the intelligence in optimal weather conditions. Photoreconnaissance satellites captured images on film that took days to weeks to be deorbited, processed, analyzed, and made available to senior US leadership. Often the imagery was of limited value because of persistent cloud cover over areas of interest to the US. A manned imagery collection system in space seemed an elegant solution for overcoming these limitations. In theory, national reconnaissance astronauts could spot targets of interest, especially in a crisis, and image on orbits where those areas of interest were free of cloud cover. The astronauts could then develop and provide a preliminary readout of conditions on the ground in a crisis situation. If successful, the MOL program would provide intelligence information that would otherwise not be available for critical US decision-making.Although the MOL program was cancelled, its legacy continued not only through the contributions to US space and defense programs by the astronauts who trained for the program, but also the technological development from the program. The technology investments in MOL were transferred to NASA for its own manned laboratory program that launched in the 1970s. The NRO also directly benefited in investments in both launch and reconnaissance collection systems that would mature for use in other NRO programs.

Download or read book Spies in Space Reflections on National Reconnaissance and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory May 2019 written by and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Dorian Files Revealed written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-26 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This newly released document from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) provides the first comprehensive, detailed history of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) space program of the 1960s. It also includes Carl Berger's "A History of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program Office" document. Contents: Chapter I: Early Space Station Planning * Chapter II: A National Space Station * Chapter III: DYNA-SOAR Killed, MOL Approved * Chapter IV: Planning the Manned Orbiting Laboratory December 1963-June 1964 * Chapter V: Evolution of the MOL Management Structure * Chapter VI: Results of the Pre-Phase I Investigation * Chapter VII: The Laboratory Vehicle Design Competition * Chapter VIII: The MOL Program Decision 25 August 1965 * Chapter IX: Organizing for Contract Definition * Chapter X: The Manned/Unmanned System Studies: 1965 - 1966 * Chapter XI: Budget, Developmental, and Schedule Problems: 1965-1966 * Chapter XII: Congress, MOL Security and the Range Controversy * Chapter XIII: Air Force / NASA Coordination * Chapter XIV: New Financial and Schedule Problems: 1967-1968 * Chapter 15: The Project Terminated * Chapter XVI: Post-Mortem The Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program was publically disclosed from its early inception-first by the Air Force in 1963 and later by President Johnson in 1965 when the program was described as a means for advancing the military's use of space. Many elements of the program have been well known, including the identities of the men selected to serve as MOL crew members, the configuration of the launch vehicle used to place the MOL in orbit, and general details of some of the experiments that were planned for the vehicle. What has not been revealed, until now, is the extent to which the MOL was designed to serve as a platform for national reconnaissance collection. The Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL as it was known, promised to use space for the first time as a manned reconnaissance vantage point. If successful, the program could dramatically change the way the United States collected intelligence on its adversaries, including the nation's main foe, the Soviet Union. In order to gain both tactical and strategic intelligence on foes, nations have turned to the skies to gain a better vantage point for collecting intelligence. The United States developed in earnest active technical intelligence collection programs after World War II. The early efforts involved modification of military aircraft to fly near, and sometimes over, the denied areas of the Soviet Union and allied nations of the Soviets. The modified aircraft carried camera and signals collection equipment to capture activities in these closed areas. Unfortunately, US adversaries could down these aircraft, and did so on several occasions. Undeterred, the US developed aircraft specifically for airborne reconnaissance-first the U-2 and later the CIA's A-12 and the Air Force's variant, the SR-71. Both became obsolete for reconnaissance over the Soviet Union as Soviet air defenses improved as was manifested by the May 1960 downing of an U-2 over the Soviet Union, piloted by Francis Gary Powers.

Download or read book The Curse of SLC 6 written by London Vallery and published by London Vallery. This book was released on 2022-03-16 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From lucky last meals to kissing flags, rituals and superstition have always been a special tradition for the United States space program and its members. However, the spread of a rumored Native American curse on the nation's premier launch site was a first for the industry. Space Launch Complex- 6 (SLC-6), on what is now Vandenberg Space Force base in Lompoc, California, was constructed in 1966 to be the most sophisticated launch complex in the world, but, despite robust government funding, found itself plagued with over four decades of mission cancellations, collapses, floods, fires, and deaths. Amongst airmen, a rumor emerged that SLC-6 had been built atop of a Native American burial site belonging to the local Chumash tribe and thus began a contentious relationship between the future of America's space program and indigenous spirituality. Following from the initial construction of the launch facility to the declaration of a US government official that the site had been hexed, this thesis deconstructs how the rumored "Curse of SLC-6" reflects a larger and inherent tension between the perceptions of Native American identity and the visions of what a prosperous America looks like. This thesis analyzes significant historical points during the mid-late twentieth century including the fear of Soviet Espionage, the rise of the American Indian Movement, and the revival of the Mystic Native Trope in an attempt to understand the socio-political environment of Lompoc that allowed this rumor to flourish. Utilizing local newspapers, private Vandenberg archives, and exclusive interviews with base officials and Chumash elders, this research uncovers never before known information that upsets decades of misreporting on this conflict. Ultimately, this research concludes how the development of the US space program is inherently tied to the concept of national imperialism and is designed as an antithesis to indigenous communities.

Download or read book Black Space written by David Axe and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-03-09 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orbital fortresses poised to fry entire cities with no warning using giant mirrors. Bombers that take off from Earth, punch through the thin border between the atmosphere and vacuum and take advantage of that lofty altitude to speed across the globe on missions of mass destruction. These and other exotic orbital weapons were under consideration, or even active development, in the early decades of humanity’s push into space. And no wonder. The era of frantic, dueling, American and Soviet space-exploration efforts -- which stretched from the end of World War II to the United States’ successful Moon landing in July 1969 -- had its roots in Nazi Germany, a country that pinned its hope for global conquest on equally ambitious superweapons. In the decades following World War II, the top scientists in the U.S. and Soviet space programs were ex-Nazis—most notably rocket-designer Wernher von Braun, who sided with the Americans. The basic technologies of the space race derived from Nazi superweapons, in particular von Braun’s V-2 rocket. But orbital war never broke out in those heady decades of intense space competition. It’s possible to triangulate the moment the seemingly inevitable became evitable. July 29, 1958. The day U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower reluctantly signed the law creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Starting that day, the U.S. military gradually ceded to NASA, a civilian agency, leadership of American efforts in space. Even von Braun, once a leading advocate of orbital warfare, went along. Space-based superweapons and their architects, and the high-stakes politics that reined them in, are the subject of this brief book.

Download or read book Manned Orbiting Laboratory Compendium written by James Outzen and published by Nimble Books. This book was released on 2023-12-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Space Power series from Nimble Books was inspired by the creation of United States Space Force in 2019. New military services are only created once or twice a century. In time, military space history should grow to have the same breadth and depth of topical coverage as military, naval, and aviation history. There are books and enthusiasts for every army, navy and air force for every nation for every era, for every type of weapon and every type of soldier. Certain topics and genres have an enduring advantage in glamor and sales: tanks, battleships, fighters, the Wehrmacht, SEALs. It's not immediately obvious which topics will carry that aura in the history of military space. This NRO book about the Manned Orbiting Laboratory falls in the "never were/space station" crossover subgenre. I hope that it will find an enthusiastic audience among those who groove on what MOL might have been. An eye in the sky; a decisive weapon; in the Cold War; a tragic casualty of space war; a driver for earlier human colonization of space: let your imagination soar! The document provides comprehensive information about the planning, development, and challenges faced by the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program. It discusses the involvement of the Air Force and NASA, the termination of the Dyna-Soar program, and the approval of the MOL program. The document also highlights the decision-making process, the rationale behind the cancellation of Dyna-Soar, and the initiation of the MOL program. It provides details about the objectives, experiments, management structure, and funding of the MOL program. Additionally, it discusses the technical challenges, the debate between a manned and unmanned system, and the financial issues faced by the program. The document concludes with information about the budget, developmental, and schedule problems faced by the MOL program, including the slippage in sensor development and the efforts to compress the development timeline. This annotated edition illustrates the capabilities of the AI Lab for Book-Lovers to add context and ease-of-use to manuscripts. It includes five types of abstracts, building from simplest to more complex: TLDR (one word), ELI5, TLDR (vanilla), Scientific Style, and Action Items; four essays to increase viewpoint diversity: Context in the Discourse, Formal Dissent; Red Team Critique; and MAGA Perspective; and Notable Passages and Nutshell Summaries for each page.

Download or read book 20th Century Spy in the Sky Satellites written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of our comprehensive series on the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and its "spy satellite" network, this volume reproduces interesting reviews and commentaries from National Reconnaissance, Journal of the Discipline and Practice, and Space Sentinel Select. Articles include: Risk Management and National Reconnaissance From the Cold War Up to the Global War on Terrorism National Reconnaissance Leadership for the 21st Century: Lessons from the NRO's Heritage One Officer's Perspective: The Decline of the National Reconnaissance Office Commentary on "The Decline of the National Reconnaissance Office"- The NRO Leadership Replies Recapturing What Made the NRO Great: Updated Observations on "The Decline of the NRO" Pioneers Of National Reconnaissance Protecting Sources and Methods versus the Public's Right to Know: Setting the Terms for a More Constructive Discussion The Rationale for Classifying Intelligence Information From Camp Incarceration to U.S. National Reconnaissance: The Case of Two Americans of Japanese Ancestry- NRO Pioneer Sam Araki and Former DDNRO Dr. F. Robert Naka Reflections of M. Sam Araki-Success Through Systems Engineering and Leading Lockheed Missiles and Space The Implications of Losing Focus: The Need for the NRO to Change Its Business Practices In Harm's Way Recipe for Acquisition SECTION 1: National Reconnaissance, Journal of the Discipline and Practice, Issue 2005-U1 SECTION 2: National Reconnaissance, Journal of the Discipline and Practice, Winter 2009 / 2010 Issue 2009-U SECTION 3: Space Sentinel Select Volume 1, Number 1, 2009 SECTION 4: Space Sentinel Select Volume 2, Number 1, 2010 NRO designs, builds and operates the nation's reconnaissance satellites. NRO products, provided to an expanding list of customers like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), can warn of potential trouble spots around the world, help plan military operations, and monitor the environment. As part of the 16-member Intelligence Community, the NRO plays a primary role in achieving information superiority for the U. S. Government and Armed Forces. A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. The NRO Vision: Vigilance From Above. NRO Mission: Innovative Overhead Intelligence Systems for National Security. In recent years, the NRO has implemented a series of actions declassifying some of its operations. The organization was declassified in September 1992 followed by the location of its headquarters in Chantilly, VA, in 1994.

Download or read book A History of Satellite Reconnaissance written by James D. Outzen and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Manned Orbiting Laboratory written by United States. Congress. Senate. Aeronautical and Space Sciences and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Declassified Manned Orbiting Laboratory MOL Records written by and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was a 1960s Air Force program with the ostensible mission to place military personnel in orbit to conduct scientific experiments to determine the ?military usefulness? of placing man into space and the techniques and procedures for doing so if the need ever arose. The actual, classified, mission of the MOL program was to place a manned surveillance satellite into orbit. At the time, several military and contractor studies estimated that manned surveillance satellites could acquire photographic coverage of the Soviet Union with resolution better than the best system at the time (the first generation Gambit satellite). Additionally, the Air Force billed the MOL as a reconnaissance system that could more efficiently and quickly adjust coverage for crises and targets of opportunity than unmanned systems. The Air Force controlled development of the satellite, which was consistent with MOL?s unclassified mission, while the NRO ran development of the covert reconnaissance mission of the program, including the camera system and other subsystems.

Download or read book 20th Century Spy in the Sky Satellites written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of our comprehensive series on the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and its "spy satellite" network, this volume covers the SAMOS satellite camera system and the incredible story of NASA's use of the camera in its highly successful Lunar Orbiter moon mapping program. The previously classified documents in this collection were released by the NRO in September 2011 as part of its 50th anniversary. In declassifying these fascinating documents, the NRO has opened the curtain to show the tremendous challenges that were overcome to achieve the impressive successes that help win the Cold War. Conceived in the mid-1950s, the novel SAMOS imaging system at that time represented cutting edge technology-a near real time analog film-readout satellite. The Eastman Kodak Company built the E-1 (preliminary) and E-2 (advanced) payloads. The E-1 featured a six-inch focal length lens in a camera that spooled a special two-component EKC Bimat (positive) film, and SO-243 (negative) film. The exposed negative film, converged with the gelatin-coated SO-111 Bimat film, was developed in a semi-dry chemical process, and then was scanned by a Columbia Broadcasting System flying spot line-scanner that consisted of a cathode-ray tube and a rotating anode having a high intensity spot of light. A photomultiplier converted the light passing from the scanner through the film into an electrical signal whose strength varied with the density of the emulsion layer of the film. The images were then radioed to Earth as frequency-modulated analog signals, to be assembled much in the manner of a wire photo, each image built up in swaths. Having acquired, launched, and then terminated work on a near real time imaging satellite, NRO officials at that time agreed to consign the SAMOS imaging system to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for use in its deep space exploration program. The surreptitious transfer of this technology, a fact just recently declassified, has remained unknown to many in the NRO and NASA because of the compartmented security measures then in place. The first three of the Lunar Orbiters completed the original task of obtaining detailed photographs needed to select Apollo landing sites. That left the last two film-readout near real time imaging satellites available to photo-map virtually the entire moon and examine in detail various surface features. Collectively, these images of the Earth's natural satellite proved a selenographic bonanza that paved the way for Project Apollo's manned lunar landings later in the decade. NRO designs, builds and operates the nation's reconnaissance satellites. NRO products, provided to an expanding list of customers like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), can warn of potential trouble spots around the world, help plan military operations, and monitor the environment. As part of the 16-member Intelligence Community, the NRO plays a primary role in achieving information superiority for the U. S. Government and Armed Forces. A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. The NRO Vision: Vigilance From Above. NRO Mission: Innovative Overhead Intelligence Systems for National Security. In recent years, the NRO has implemented a series of actions declassifying some of its operations. The organization was declassified in September 1992 followed by the location of its headquarters in Chantilly, VA, in 1994.

Download or read book The Dorian Files Revealed written by James D. Outzen and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Shades of Gray written by L. Parker Temple and published by AIAA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this work, Temple tracks the evolution of space reconnaissance systems from their seeds in the painful lessons of Pearl Harbor through the challenges of today" --book cover.

Download or read book 20th Century Spy in the Sky Satellites written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of our comprehensive series on the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and its "spy satellite" network, this volume covers additional aspects of the history of the NRO as an organization, with a special focus on leaders, pioneers, and founders. It also includes the "lost" Volume IV history written by Robert Perry. Contents include: Section 1: Pioneers of National Reconnaissance Section 2: Program Directors of The NRO - ABC & D Section 3: Founders of National Reconnaissance Section 4: Leaders of The National Reconnaissance Office 1961-2001 Section 5: Directors of The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years Section 6: NRO History - Robert Perry -Identified by the NRO History Staff on 10 June 1999 as Being Robert Perry's Volume IV NRO designs, builds and operates the nation's reconnaissance satellites. NRO products, provided to an expanding list of customers like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), can warn of potential trouble spots around the world, help plan military operations, and monitor the environment. As part of the 16-member Intelligence Community, the NRO plays a primary role in achieving information superiority for the U. S. Government and Armed Forces. A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. The NRO Vision: Vigilance From Above. NRO Mission: Innovative Overhead Intelligence Systems for National Security. In recent years, the NRO has implemented a series of actions declassifying some of its operations. The organization was declassified in September 1992 followed by the location of its headquarters in Chantilly, VA, in 1994.