MOL

[Archibald]

Posting here a bunch of documents related to the saga of the MOL Film ReadOut system. Long story short, MOL astronauts could have laser-scanned the most interesting pictures to a ground station.

The more we gets declassified MOL documents, the more interesting it looks. So the crew would have a) looked through a periscope-like Advanced Tracking Scope, watching for targets of opportunity. And b) if they saw one (new missile in Baikonur !) they would have grabbed control from the main big camera - screw the automatics - and taken pictures of interest. And after that, c) they could have laser-scanned the picture to a ground station ?

I know that MOL basic concept was made obsolete by GAMBIT and HEXAGON - but still, interesting way of spying from above.

We know the NRO had a KH-11 spying the smoldering remains of Chernobyl unit 4 reactor a few days after the disaster. They even pinpointed helicopters and firemen, and the red glare of the nuclear inferno. Wonder what MOL crews would have thought of the mess below.

 

[Scott Kenny]

is a SNAP reactor, Label on reaktor US AEC = United States Atomic Energy Commission,
they build Nuclear power systems for NASA

here Picture from Gemini B
I think is First operational version for MOL (no Mockup)
found on Ninfinger home page

AEC is in charge of all nuclear reactors, they're called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission now.

Early on in this thread there is a pic of 3 MOL's docked to form a larger station. ISTR that one of the Phil Bono/Ken Gattland books I had (lost in Hurricane Isabel) also mentioned that there was a plan for linking two or more MOLs together. Does anyone have any info on that? Was it a serious proposal?

For most space station ideas expansion is a good thing, but given the mission of MOL, what additional capabilities would have resulted from this configuration (or was this intended for something more...proactive..than orbital recon)?

One of the MOL missions was "Satellite Interception (SAINT)", which included potentially destroying other satellites.

the M.O.L configuration found in this NRO dokument
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/QUILL/25. Semi-Annual Report to the PFIAB 1965-66.PDF

Thank you!!!

Thx for Link, George Allegrezza

It Interesting to what is Blacked in Text
of course the Resolution of MOL optical system, because it was used on next generation spy sats

but this quite puzzling
P-7-- Remote Maneuvering Unit. To evaluate the astronaut's ability to control the Remote Maneuvering Unit (RMU) the rest of sentences is black out

mention of A memo Between Generals about MOL, but the File reference number in black out

A name of a NRO Comptroller is black out in the entire text.

Department of Defense would undertake to develop MOL with a BLACK OUT capability, either manned or unmanned.
They also agreed that a flight demonstration of the unmanned system would be conducted nine months after the first manned flight.

MOL, it said, would produce photos containing sufficient detail to determine the performance characteristics, capabilities and
limitations of important enemy weapons. It also could provide intelligence of BLACK OUT and contribute "to the monitoring of any arms limitaticn agreement."

A lot of that was to do with Satellite Interception, inspection, and potentially destruction.

I've see that, too. Having done some research on L-301 and STAR-Clipper (which shared similar V-shaped drop tanks) this really looks similar. The timing is also correct: the two vehicle studies started in 1965-66 with Maxwell Hunter arrival at Lockheed. MOL was in full swing at that time. And don't forget, L-301 and STAR-clipper are little more than the usual paper projects... STAR-Clipper somewhat kickstarted NASA Space Shuttle in August 1968 (George Mueller at the BIS) while they build a mockup of L-301.

On paper at least - it could work.

Strap two LH2-LOX-LF2 V-shaped tanks on the sides of a MOL. Add an AMS-1 aerospike "engine module" on the rear bulkhead. Fire, go into orbit.

Can be done as a SSTO provided specific impulse is well past 465 seconds - 480, 500, up to 510 is feasible if LF2 is added to the classic hydrolox. Perhaps not a full blown 15 mt MOL but something a little lighter, 5 mt to 10 mt. "The end justify the mean". USAF would do it. Why ? because - no need for Vandenberg, SLC-6, and Titan III-M.

Obviously it would be insanely dangerous for the crew - even in the Gemini-B with an escape system.

The way I read the documents above, the more it reads like that.

"With AMS-1, aerospike and LF2 tech, a MOL could launch itself into orbit - 1.5STO style. Screw the Titan III-M"

I am hearing John Clark's words from Ignition! in my head...

FLOX engines are terrifying.

Although this study exists, I suspect it occurred after the major decisions had already been made for MOL. MOL ran into some congressional headwinds as people started to ask the entirely reasonable question of they the United States needed two different space stations and spacecraft if they were going to operate in Earth orbit. A similar question was asked about why MOL had to launch from California when there was a perfectly good launch pad in Florida. The answer "because we want to spy on the Soviet Union" was not one that they could use.

So you find some sciencey missions that need to be done from a polar orbit, and claim those. Because you simply cannot get to a polar orbit from Florida!

I think that's a legitimate question and option. But I have not seen any evidence that it was considered.

Soon after MOL was declassified there was an event at the Air Force Museum in Dayton and several of the MOL astronauts spoke about it. One of them was James Abrahamson, who later became a general and was in charge of SDI. Abrahamson told a great story. He said that soon after he was named as a MOL astronaut, the program suffered a setback and the general in charge asked the astronauts what they should do. Abrahamson said that they should reorient the program so that the very first mission was manned and operational, meaning no test flights. If you think about it, that's a very can-do fighter jock type of attitude. Abrahamson said that it was actually a mistake, because it pushed back the first launch even further. He said that he later learned when he was in charge of programs that it's more important to fly something, anything, early, in order to demonstrate progress. If you are just doing stuff on the ground, nobody knows about it and you are more vulnerable to cancellation.

(Note that NASA has not followed this lesson with regards to its human spaceflight program.)

Yeah, that's a very large cultural issue at NASA. Show your work!

It might help if, when you reference a document, you also include the date. That helps to understand what is going on. For instance, the above document you link is dated June 6, 1969. Perhaps by no coincidence at all, MOL was canceled on June 7, 1969. So it is possible that this briefing set was created to show to somebody when the program was being considered for cancellation. To be honest, if the program is facing cancellation because of budget pressures, showing up with briefing slides that illustrate all the cool things you could do with even more money is probably a bad move.

Yeah, that's when you need to be saying, "This is the cool stuff we have done so far, this is the next step in the improvement process and how much we need to finish that step, and this is the step after that and what we can do if you continue funding"

3-They seem to have been making 2.4-meter diameter mirrors since the 1970s now. It makes you wonder what is so magic about that number.

I suspect that's the biggest mirror before you run into the atmospheric limits on image resolution. So there's just no reason to go bigger and need a more expensive rocket to get the satellite into orbit.

Does anyone have the math or whatever that defines the atmospheric limits on image resolution?

=====
Also, I wanted to say that this was an immensely cool thread. If any of y'all are gamers, you should check out the game Lunar, by Black Site Studios. It's got a great alternative timeline where the USSR beat the US to man on the moon, so the US vowed to put lunar colonies before the Russians did. I'm working on a follow-on to Blue Gemini/MOL for USAF personnel on the moon.

 

[Byeman]

One of the MOL missions was "Satellite Interception (SAINT)", which included potentially destroying other satellites.

Not that was a separate program. MOL could not maneuver and hence could not rendezvous.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Not that was a separate program. MOL could not maneuver and hence could not rendezvous.

Yes, SAINT proper was a separate program, that IIRC was spun out of MOL once they realized that MOL couldn't maneuver. But that was still one of the official missions for MOL in the founding documents.

 

[Yellow Palace]

So you find some sciencey missions that need to be done from a polar orbit, and claim those. Because you simply cannot get to a polar orbit from Florida!

Earth observation - it isn't even technically untrue, you're just omitting the detail of which bits of the Earth you're planning on observing.

Technically you can get to a polar orbit from Florida, it's been done a couple of times. But it's not the smart place to start because the trajectory is either very inefficient or involves flying rockets over places people live.

 

[Archibald]

LEO plane changes for SAINT would be just horrible. http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm#maneuver
Case in point: moving Hubble from 28.5 to the ISS 51.6 degree orbit would be akin to sending it to Earth escape velocity : 3000 m/s. And that's only 23 degrees !

 

[Michel Van]

Not that was a separate program. MOL could not maneuver and hence could not rendezvous.

it seems this was tool for this mission.
P-7-- Remote Maneuvering Unit. To evaluate the astronaut's ability to control the Remote Maneuvering Unit (RMU)

 

[Scott Kenny]

Earth observation - it isn't even technically untrue, you're just omitting the detail of which bits of the Earth you're planning on observing.

Better to pick something that fairly obviously needs a polar orbit, rather than the generic "Earth Observation".

Besides, "Earth Observation" sounds like "spying".

Technically you can get to a polar orbit from Florida, it's been done a couple of times. But it's not the smart place to start because the trajectory is either very inefficient or involves flying rockets over places people live.

Huh. Wasn't aware that they'd done it.

 

[Archibald]

At some point in the late 1960's...
- Remote sensing (NASA)
- Arms control (ACDA)
- Spy satellites (NRO)
Almost collided.
NASA and ACDA realized that spysat technology could help the missions above... but it was deeply classified, for National Security obvious reasons. So "civilian spysats" would not happen, except with ground resolution degraded to 60 ft at best.

 

[Byeman]

Yes, SAINT proper was a separate program, that IIRC was spun out of MOL once they realized that MOL couldn't maneuver. But that was still one of the official missions for MOL in the founding documents.

No, SAINT was started in 1957, long before MOL was even a thought.

 

[Byeman]

Huh. Wasn't aware that they'd done it.

Falcon-9 did one earlier this year

 

[Scott Kenny]

No, SAINT was started in 1957, long before MOL was even a thought.

And yet you can look at the missions list for MOL and inspecting foreign satellites was one of the missions.

 

[Archibald]

Falcon-9 did one earlier this year

Didn't even realized that. How did they got a waiver to do that ? Aren't F9 stages able to land on the East coast, Canada, Cuba... ? I thought this was the reason why The Cape azimuth was limited to 57 degrees, except the Shuttle 62 degrees, but not 90 ?

they did a dogleg and took the big performance penalty ?

Just being curious...

 

[Michel Van]

So far i know NASA and USAF launch in 1960s also Polar from Cape in Florida
but things went wrong and one launch failed and remains of rocket fell on Cuba
reportedly killing a cow and prompting protests at the U.S. Embassy in Havana...
1968 on all polar launches were then done from Vandenberg west coast.

SpaceX were one of first resume polar from Florida
Since they launch mostly small sats or Starlinks into Polar
and different flight profile were Second stage is high and fast over Cuba.

MOL from Cape into Polar, NO
the 1960s Titan IIIM had to make complex roll manoeuvre,
and that with Solid booster and if something goes wrong
a complete spy sat falls on Cuba, follow by increase Russian tourist to Cuba.
the ones that want take certain Souvenirs back to USSR...

 

[Byeman]

Didn't even realized that. How did they got a waiver to do that ? Aren't F9 stages able to land on the East coast, Canada, Cuba... ? I thought this was the reason why The Cape azimuth was limited to 57 degrees, except the Shuttle 62 degrees, but not 90 ?

they did a dogleg and took the big performance penalty ?

Just being curious...

They went south. They use automated range safety so the range didn't need to have sites to support.
There was a performance penalty but with the aggregation type missions, they are not mass constrained. and the launch is cheap.

 

[Byeman]

And yet you can look at the missions list for MOL and inspecting foreign satellites was one of the missions.

The "mission list" was just cover for the real mission.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The "mission list" was just cover for the real mission.

"Inspecting and if necessary destroying other satellites" is not a mission you'd want to advertise.

 

[Byeman]

"Inspecting and if necessary destroying other satellites" is not a mission you'd want to advertise.

The vehicle didn't have the capability to rendezvous or make major orbit changes

 

[Scott Kenny]

The vehicle didn't have the capability to rendezvous or make major orbit changes

Still listed among the original MOL missions, so I can only assume that either they changed how capable the MOL was intended to be or planned on docking an OTV stage for that work.

 

[Byeman]

Still listed among the original MOL missions, so I can only assume that either they changed how capable the MOL was intended to be or planned on docking an OTV stage for that work.

Again, just a cover. None of those were the intended mission.

 

[Archibald]

Still listed among the original MOL missions, so I can only assume that either they changed how capable the MOL was intended to be or planned on docking an OTV stage for that work.

See my post upthread. Would need a modified Centaur for a maximum 23 degrees plane change. And additional Titan III, think of Voyager / Viking Titan IIIE except with 7-segment booster (a Titan III E-M, really !)

 

[martinbayer]

All righty then, so essentially a DOD peeping tom version of Skylab, overcome by Keyhole sats. What gives - men staring at goats through telescopes? At least one moderately inquiring mind really wants to know about the expected ROI here as opposed to uncrewed assets?

 

[Archibald]

It's... complicated. The "whys" of MOL remain rather murky, 60 years after the facts...
- 12/1963 The non-NRO "white" USAF wanted astronauts, but DynaSoar had just been shot down, so they got a space station as a consolation prize
- From 1963 to 1965 USAF didn't really knew what useful military missions it could do.
See here - https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=23864.880
- By 1965 the "black" Air Force - NRO program A - came to the rescue: "manned spysat".
- so it got a Key Hole number: KH-10.
- next, among robotic spysats, it was found it could do (on paper at least) a few things
a) Screw cloud cover: don't waste film
b) Watch for targets of opportunity
c) Very high resolution, (VHR) details as small as 4 inches
d) Arms control maybe ? (I've seen a few documents related to that in the NRO archive)

And so it began for real, in summer 1965 after LBJ granted his approval. But there were grave doubts about its true usefulness and pertinence. Even more when in 66-67 GAMBIT switched from KH-7 to KH-8, and started getting ground resolution records after records. A decade later it returned a picture with details as small as 2.3 inches: 6 cm. Somewhat loosely related to this by 1966 an unmanned MOL was designed, also for the VHR mission.

Meanwhile CORONA successor evolved into the monster KH-9 (IOC 1971) which competed for funding with the equally expensive KH-10. By spring 1969 it was obvious not both could be funded, the debate went as high as Nixon himself. Which canned the KH-9 first, then reversed his decision, and MOL was dead on June 10, 1969.

 

[martinbayer]

OK, cavitation bubble it is then - I've defined that particular meaning before on this forum. I just still don't get the obsession about hypothetical steely eyed telescope men frolicking around in nonexistent pressurized low Earth orbital metal cans just to be USG peeping toms though - has that anything to do with whether a falling tree in a forest makes a sound? (Spoiler alert - yes, it does, because of basic physics, d'oh!)

 

[Byeman]

This is why:

https://i.redd.it/from-the-march-22-1952-colliers-magazine-this-von-braun-v0-acmz0ry7sjv91.jpg?s=6cc49a5d0a81b3d8363af483dfc6d3000434ed55

WVB idea of a space station manned with dozens permeated through the psyche of NASA and the Air Force. It was thought that any platform (Comsat, weather sat, spy sat, etc) would need to be manned for maintenance/repairs and control/feedback. That is why NASA station concepts started earlier and the military had manned vehicle projects. Meanwhile, especially behind the scenes for DOD, unmanned spacecraft became more and more sophisticated and autonomous and found that crew didn't have ROI. The use of unmanned air vehicles is becoming more prevalent for military but for space, it has been SOP for decades.

 

[Scott Kenny]

All righty then, so essentially a DOD peeping tom version of Skylab, overcome by Keyhole sats. What gives - men staring at goats through telescopes? At least one moderately inquiring mind really wants to know about the expected ROI here as opposed to uncrewed assets?

A large part of it was to make Space a USAF preserve, and not have NASA (NACA, rather) much in space at all.

And had solid state electronics not happened till 10 years later, we probably would have had space stations in orbit, with people up there to replace popped vacuum tubes.

 

[publiusr]

Integrated circuit chips should have been invented on a moonbase.

 

[Byeman]

A large part of it was to make Space a USAF preserve, and not have NASA (NACA, rather) much in space at all.

And had solid state electronics not happened till 10 years later, we probably would have had space stations in orbit, with people up there to replace popped vacuum tubes.

Incorrect. MOL did not come about until 1963 after Dyna Soar was cancelled and NASA was more than 5 years old (NACA was long gone). Mercury has already flown its missions and Gemini was soon to start launching. NASA already had established its foothold in manned space.

Solid state electronics (transistor) were invented in 1947, a ten year delay would have just pushed back the timelines. Skylab was 25 years after the transistor was invented, tubes on stations is just not plausible.

 

[Byeman]

Integrated circuit chips should have been invented on a moonbase.

Ok, then we would still be waiting for them. ICs enabled the space program and defense. Without them, we would have just sogged around. Likely, the US would not have been able to contain the USSR and things would be quite different. No PC's or consumer electronics. Only a few manned flights to LEO and nothing more.

They were invented in 1958. Only 6 orbital launches had occurred by then.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Ok, then we would still be waiting for them. ICs enabled the space program and defense. Without them, we would have just sogged around. Likely, the US would not have been able to contain the USSR and things would be quite different. No PC's or consumer electronics. Only a few manned flights to LEO and nothing more.

They were invented in 1958. Only 6 orbital launches had occurred by then.

What integrated circuits did was make it so that unmanned craft could go up and do the job instead of bigger manned space stations, where the people were in space to replace blown vacuum tubes.

Which means there was less pressure to push for heavy lift capabilities, and less pressure to develop cheap access to space.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Incorrect. MOL did not come about until 1963 after Dyna Soar was cancelled and NASA was more than 5 years old (NACA was long gone). Mercury has already flown its missions and Gemini was soon to start launching. NASA already had established its foothold in manned space.

Solid state electronics (transistor) were invented in 1947, a ten year delay would have just pushed back the timelines. Skylab was 25 years after the transistor was invented, tubes on stations is just not plausible.

MOL was still intended to try to make space a USAF and therefore military preserve and not a civilian one.

 

[Byeman]

What integrated circuits did was make it so that unmanned craft could go up and do the job instead of bigger manned space stations, where the people were in space to replace blown vacuum tubes.

Which means there was less pressure to push for heavy lift capabilities, and less pressure to develop cheap access to space.

That was already happening with solid state devices doing this in the 50's before ICs came in the 60's. CORONA, Ranger, and Mercury spacecraft didn't have ICs. There never was a need for vacuum tubes in US spacecraft in the first place. The "pressure" wasn't even there in the beginning. Only the concepts of the 40's and early 50's (WVB's last Collier article was in 1954) had the manned vacuum tube space stations. People building spacecraft (and not launch vehicles) didn't have those ideas in the late 50's.

 

[Byeman]

MOL was still intended to try to make space a USAF and therefore military preserve and not a civilian one.

Wrong. it was to find use of man in space for military needs. By the time of MOL, USAF/military had no desires to make a "preserve". They lost that battle when NASA was formed and NASA was responsible for the US government's civilian space program. All the military's non military space projects (and some organizations) were taken away: MISS, Explorer/JPL, Saturn/ABMA, Vanguard/NRL, early Pioneers/STL. Kennedy directed NASA to go to the moon in September 1962, long before MOL. The government was not going to let the USAF claim space as a "military preserve".

These are facts and not opinions.

 

[blackstar]

AEC is in charge of all nuclear reactors, they're called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission now.

Maybe other people are different, but I find that posts that quote multiple different authors are annoying as heck. It's better to simply quote one author and one post. Much less confusing. I won't want to reply to a post that includes not only responses to what I wrote, but responses to what other people wrote as well. Too much headache.

 

[blackstar]

MOL was still intended to try to make space a USAF and therefore military preserve and not a civilian one.

No. MOL was intended to pursue a niche intelligence mission of very high resolution reconnaissance. All the other missions that were first discussed in 1963-1964 were gone by 1965.

MOL's mission was constantly getting smaller and more niche and less useful until it was canceled in 1969. That is why it was canceled.

 

[blackstar]

The more we gets declassified MOL documents, the more interesting it looks. So the crew would have a) looked through a periscope-like Advanced Tracking Scope, watching for targets of opportunity. And b) if they saw one (new missile in Baikonur !) they would have grabbed control from the main big camera - screw the automatics - and taken pictures of interest. And after that, c) they could have laser-scanned the picture to a ground station ?

There was a bit more to it than that: the MOL computer would have been pre-programmed for each photo-pass to take the photos. The astronauts would have looked through the tracking scopes for both targets of opportunity and to avoid cloud-covered targets. They would have then re-prioritized the targets in real-time. So if there was a target that was lower-priority (like a missile silo), but they saw an ICBM being loaded into the silo, they would have hit the button making that a higher-priority, and the computer would have bumped it up the list to photograph it, bumping down the other targets. Apparently it was a rather sophisticated system for its time.

 

[martinbayer]

It's just one of those projects that became sooo totes OBE. Man in a can staring at a scan. Orbital Nissen Hut for USAF Peeping Toms. Whoopdedoo. I'm really starting to enjoy being a boomer...

 

[blackstar]

I should add that we also have a diagram that indicates how small the imaging footprint was for MOL. That shows that while the DORIAN camera could have taken photos of some targets, others would have been missed because there were just too many to cover during a single photo pass. That's the downside to having high resolution--the amount of area you can photograph is small.

 

[Michel Van]

That's the downside to having high resolution--the amount of area you can photograph is small.

it make sense

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 area photograph by Camera do 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 ?

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

DORIAN was not limited by the quality of film, but by atmospheric interference.