boogabooga
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The National Reconnaissance Office has declassified a number of records relating to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) a.k.a KH-10 DORIAN.
The records can be found here.
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL.html
The compendium is really nice. There are also some cool pictures of fabrication, etc. So far, I'm finding the memos a bit tedious and more for policy/history researchers than space enthusiasts.
Details on the optics are still classified, though (seriously?!).
Too be honest, I haven't seen anything too surprising or unexpected yet.
For those that don't know, MOL was a semi-classified program to build a manned spy space station. Astronauts were selected and trained and apparently, flight hardware was built. However, it was cancelled in 1969 before any flights were conducted in favor of unmanned satellites. Several astronauts who trained under the MOL program transferred to NASA and went on to fly on the shuttle, including Robert Crippen (of STS-1 fame) and Richard Truly. For more background, PBS NOVA dedicated an episode to MOL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/astrospies.html
It is interesting to note that the cancelled DORIAN is being declassified four years after the very active GAMBIT and HEXAGON systems.
The records can be found here.
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/MOL.html
The compendium is really nice. There are also some cool pictures of fabrication, etc. So far, I'm finding the memos a bit tedious and more for policy/history researchers than space enthusiasts.
Details on the optics are still classified, though (seriously?!).
Too be honest, I haven't seen anything too surprising or unexpected yet.
For those that don't know, MOL was a semi-classified program to build a manned spy space station. Astronauts were selected and trained and apparently, flight hardware was built. However, it was cancelled in 1969 before any flights were conducted in favor of unmanned satellites. Several astronauts who trained under the MOL program transferred to NASA and went on to fly on the shuttle, including Robert Crippen (of STS-1 fame) and Richard Truly. For more background, PBS NOVA dedicated an episode to MOL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/astrospies.html
It is interesting to note that the cancelled DORIAN is being declassified four years after the very active GAMBIT and HEXAGON systems.
