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2 APP 

MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD 

SUBJECT: PRC Meeting, March 19, 1968 

The March MOL PRC meeting took place at 1300 hours in the MOL 

Control Room at the Systems Office. The following principals were 

present: 

Dr. Flax 

General Ferguson 

Major General Stewart 

Major General Bleymaier 

Major General Martin 

INTRODUCTION: 

Brig General Berg 

Mr. John Kirk 

Dr. Yarymovych 

General Bleymaier opened the meeting by briefly reviewing key 

personnel changes within the Systems Office and describing the 

regrouping of certain tasks within his organization. The personnel 

changes were required as a result of the pending retirement of 

Colonels Kester, Wheeler, and Brassfield and the promotion of three 

of his officers to full colonel. The principal change in task 

assignment was the move of the Gemini B responsibility from Colonel 

Brassfield's Directorate to Colonel Norman's Directorate. This assigns 

to Colonel Norman responsibility for both the laboratory segment and 

the GPmini B segment, thereby, having a single individual responsible 

for program activities involving the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. 

DEPUTY DIRECTOR'S REPORT: 

General Bleymaier opened the formal part of his presentation with 

a review of the MOL financial status. He compared the current position 

with his report to Dr. Flax at the February 20 PRC and then discussed 

each contractors position in some detail. In general, the contractors 

are tracking fairly closely to the figures given them in December as 

the government's limitation of liabilities. Projection of available 

data to the current FY end-position indicates a variance of approximately plus $30 million. General Bleymaier expressed confidence that 

the final figure will probably be less than this. General Bleymaier's 

last chart on fiscal status depicted the program forecast summary on 

the value of work authorized and negotiated, authorized but not 

negotiated and projected but not authorized. He explained that the 

chart was prepared using contractor figures and these figures had not 

been reviewed and evaluated by the Systems Office. The total value 
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of all categories of work shown in the chart is approximately $2.8 

billion. Dr. Flax asked if the projection reflected all items of work 

that everyone agreed were necessary for program accomplishment and 

General Bleymaier responded in the affirmative. 

General Bleymaier then reviewed the status of the MOL SPO calendar 

68 major milestones and discussed progress against these milestones. 

He indicated that data should be available to General Electric in 

April which will permit the elimination of one of the IVS contractors. 

At the conclusion of the milestone discussion, General Bleymaier 

showed pictures of current work in progress at the associate( 

contractors. One of the pictures from Eastman Kodak depicted the 

structural test model of the COA showing aluminum mass substitutes for 

the optical glass. Dr. Flax stated that he felt it was necessary for 

us to verify that the properties of the aluminum mass substitute were 

adequate and correct as a substitute for the optical glass. 

General Bleymaier reported that work on the 71" ULE blank was 

going well. The first blank was accepted by the Joint MOL-Special 

Projects Acceptance Team and the team considered the ULE blank as an 

excellent piece of work. In fact, the team considered it better than 

the fused silica blanks received to date. Colonel Knolle stated that 

all indications pointed to achieving the August milestone for the 

decision on the use of ULE versus fused silica blanks. 

General Bleymaier reported on the progress of Project Emily. He 

described work in progress to obtain uniformity, consistency and the 

elimination or minimization of deviations in the contractor Systems 

Performance and Design Requirements (SP/DR) baseline. This important 

effort is proceeding well. A great deal of effort has been expended; 

however, much work remains in the areas of interface documentation, 

contract end items (CEI), specifications and interface definitions. 

When completed, this work will provide the basis for a sound cost 

negotiation for all items not on contract, it will insure that no 

important item is overlooked and will reduce the contractor data 

requirements by a considerable amount. 

In summarizing his presentation, General Bleymaier called attention 

to the fact that UTC is performing at a cost lower than the original 

UTC estimate due to the use of spin casting techniques in lieu of welding 

for the cases of the solid rocket motors. Dr. Flax injected a precautionary note by saying that we should carefully follow the application 

of the spin casting technique. He observed that on the surface, the 

technique appears better than welding but that one cannot be confident 

that a change in technique will not cause an unexpected change or 

condition in the material which could serve to our disadvantage. 

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MOL ADVANCED PLANNING PROGRAM: 

Lt Colonel Skantz described the purpose of his briefing was to 

summarize the MOL Advanced Planning Program and to identify the 

advanced planning tasks for FY 69. He explained that he wished to 

outline the work that his small staff and the Aerospace people 

working with him had accomplished to date and the factors which they 

felt were pertinent to their future work. Colonel Skantz projected 

two conceptual categories of advanced MOL vehicles. The first category, 

identified as Block 2, was described as the next buy of vehicles which 

would incorporate modest improvements to the present baseline. Factors 

considered included lead times, decision points, size of the buy, 

and suggested areas of system improvement, such as on-orbit life, readout capability, and enhanced pay-load performance. The second category, 

which Colonel Skantz identified as Block 3 MOL,was described as the 

growth step. Factors considered were the lead time and decision points, 

long duration missions, larger pay-load and alternative missions. 

Various options under each of these categories were discussed. Pertinent 

comment from the audience included the following: Dr. Flax observed 

that for the Block 2 vehicles the only cost which would be incurred 

in FY 70 would be those funds necessary to protect the lead times on 

the optical glass. Dr. Flax asked Colonel Skantz if he had examined 

the question as to what point the development of a rendezvous and 

resupply capability becomes cost effective. Colonel Skantz answered 

by saying that in his opinion an operational pay off could be realized 

on a schedule which would require four or five MOL missions per year. 

In regard to the Block 3 vehicle, Colonel Skantz described a concept 

for an unmanned resupply vehicle and stated that both Lockheed and 

Douglas were working on a system concept for such a vehicle. This 

concept envisions a Titan IIIB/Agena combination with a forward 

structure on the Agena housing expendables and life support resupply 

items. When asked by Dr. Flax his estimate of the cost of such a 

system, Colonel Skantz replied $350 to $500 million. Colonel Skantz 

suggested the potential use of the MOL vehicle, less pay-load, as an 

orbital test bed which could be used for a variety of test missions 

and stated that he thought it would be useful to contact other 

activities within the Air Force to ascertain what needs they may have 

for conducting experiments using MOL hardware. Dr. Flax asked Colonel 

Skantz his estimate of the cost of such a vehicle,to which Colonel 

Skantz replied about $60 million. Dr. Flax further commented that, 

in this case, the MOL hardware should be looked upon as a test bed for 

either a manned or unmanned use. Further he cautioned that should we 

go out to the Air Force with this suggestion there will undoubtedly 

be many replies and that everyone should bear in mind that there are 

no sustaining funds to fly space experiments. It would be necessary 

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to make it completely clear to anyone expressing interest that it would 

be necessary for them to supply the dollars to conduct the experiment 

and supply the hardware. Dr. Flax pointed out that, considering the 

difficulty we have trying to convince NASA to use its funds to buy 

the lesser expensive MOL hardware, the problem with the Air Force 

would be much more difficult because there are no such funds available. 

Dr. Flax interposed no objection to us looking for other customers 

within the Air Force. Pertinent to this point, although it occurred 

later in the meeting it is included here, General Martin strongly 

recommended that any solicitations for other Air Force users of MOL 

hardware should be very carefully controlled as it could produce 

considerable activity and focus on the program with very little useful 

purpose. Dr. Flax made the observation that such activity could very 

well appear like Apollo Applications in the public eye. 

Other comments which took place during the advanced planning 

portion of the briefing included Dr. Flax's statement that, as a 

minimum, we must look ahead to making small individual improvements in 

various aspects of the system that will help extend the duration of 

the active on-orbit life. He also noted that it is the general 

responsibility of any planning group in a program to look at other work 

in other programs to see what can be applied from those programs to 

later versions of vehicles within the parent program. He stated that 

without commiting himself to any level of planning activities we must 

look at rendezvous and resupply in order to answer the many questions 

which we get on this subject. 

General Stewart stated that we should consider read-out for the 

Block 2 version. Dr. Flax expressed the view that he was not much 

of a booster for a large dollar investment for a read-out capability 

in a program already hard up for money. General Stewart explained 

that what he wanted to do was study ways to provide an inexpensive 

read-out system. Dr. Flax stated that he had no objection to looking 

at the read-out system as a study exercise. He suggested that such a 

study could profit by looking at trade-offs whereby a cheaper and 

simpler read-out system could be employed by reducing the capacity of 

the system as in the case of the. lunar orbiter (e.g. slow data transmission). 

At the conclusion of the discussion on advanced planning, the 

question of the present financial exercise concerned with the President's 

budget cuts was discussed. Dr. Flax asked Mr. Kirk if he felt that 

we had done everything that we needed to. Mr. Kirk stated that as 

far as he knew, we had. Mr. Kirk also pointed out that in the DCP, 

and other statements, we had taken the position that unless the program 

were funded at a reasonable level compatible with requirements, we 

should publicly terminate the program. Mr. Kirk explained that this 

could put Dr. Foster in a difficult political position at this time. 

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This is because we are in an election year and adverse publicity to 

the administration could result from a public cancellation. Dr. Flax 

expressed the opinion that continuing the program in FY 69 at the 

$400 million level would be an unproductive effort. Mr. Kirk added 

that so sizeable a budget cut would provide additional ammunition to 

those critics who presently state that the ground resolution 

is not worth the current program costs. At the $400 million level, 

the schedule will slip pushing the program back a considerable amount 

while adding to the program cost. Dr. Flax stated that we must 

amplify our present data in regard to total program cost and schedule 

impacts based on an FY 69 NON of$0)million. 

EXECUTIVE SESSION: 

The purpose of General Stewart's briefing was to describe to the 

group the relation between the principal management issue of the MOL 

program as described in the DCP (Which is the attainment of 

resolution photography of significant targets in denied 

areas for technical, strategic and tactical intelligence purposes and 

issues related to the worth of obtaining these. objectives versus the 

cost of the effort of the program) and the reservations of the DCI on 

this issue. The point of concern is the response of the DCI, Mr. 

Helms, to the MOL DCP. Mr. Helms was given the MOL DCP by Dr. Foster 

to allow Mr. Helms the opportunity to express his reservations concerning MOL which were known but not documented to that point. Mr. Helms' 

position is that he has reservations as to the value of 

resolution photography for intelligence purposes. Mr. Helms 

recognizes that photography with resolution better than that obtained 

from current systems would be helpful but he does not believe that 

past studies performed by his organization demonstrate that the value 

of increased resolution justifies the cost associated with the MOL 

program. Mr. Helms has initiated a review and update of these studies. 

In addition to the above background, General Stewart reviewed 

his discussion with General Carroll which indicated that General 

Carroll does not strongly support the program solely on the basis of 

very high resolution usage. Dr. Flax observed that both Mr. Helms 

and General Carroll see growing budgets on all sides which are attributed 

to intelligence functions. Dr. Flax supposes that they both see $600 

million that could be devoted to other purposes or programs of greater 

interest to them. Dr. Flax feels that this is not a correct assumption 

and should MOL be cancelled, there is no reason for them to believe 

that the funds freed by the cancellation would be devoted to other 

intelligence gathering activities. Dr. Flax pointed out that Rivers 

and Mahon were supporting the proposition of a military capability in 

space; therefore, it does not follow that if MOL were cancelled Mr. 

Helms would get additional funding for his efforts. 

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General Stewart reviewed his recent discussions with General Thomas 

and explained that General Thomas had agreed for the AFNIN people to do 

a study to demonstrate the value of resolution. General Stewart 

explained that the Program Office was updating and adding to our existing study on this subject. Additionally, we are looking at various 

options of system employment such as using different orbits. In regard 

to the latter point, Dr. Flax suggested caution with respect to placing 

to much emphasis on the use of MOL for daily repetitive coverage of a 

single target since the intelligence community has not supported the 

use of an unmanned satellite in this fashion. 

General Stewart then described some short-term studies which he 

felt should be undertaken. The first of these was the study of improvements for Block 2 in which the Objective would be to tighten the 

specifications throughout the system thereby improving the resolution 

to Dr. Flax expressed the view that this might 

be useful but probably would not affect the outcome of the present 

controversy. If Mr. Helms does not agree with the need for there 

is no reason to believe that he will agree with something less than 

General Stewart stated that he would like to propose to Eastman 

Kodak that they conduct a study based on the present camera/vehicle 

envelope for the purpose of determining what modification could be made 

to the system to obtain a resolution. Dr. Flax interposed 

no objection other than the thought that this would not influence the DCI. 

At this point a general discussion took place which was led largely 

by Dr. Flax. His remarks were summarized as follows: We will have to 

get AFNIN and DIA thinking in a particular channel. This channel is 

an appreciation of confidence level in intelligence estimates. The DOD 

cannot use rather large uncertainties in estimates since these uncertainties have a very great impact on total cost of defense. The 

people who make estimates apparently feel that their job is finished 

when the estimate is complete. They apparently do not appreciate the 

significance of attaching a confidence factor to their estimates. For 

example, there are the GAMBIT3 results showing that all the Soviet 

divisions in the central line in Western Russia were underequipped. 

They have trucks instead of tanks. The agency produced a report 

pointing this fact out but apparently did not appreciate the importance 

of this report in relation to U.S. military deployments in Europe. We 

must stress the importance with both AFNIN and DIA of the level of 

confidence and accuracy in the factors contained in the reports and 

estimates. I was briefed by the Army Missile Command on their analysis 

of the Moscow system. The Army had analyzed this.system and given it 

a capability of covering all of Western Russia with a kill probability 

of .8. There is no estimate of confidence on this very significant 

conclusion. Dr. Flax said that he had asked Mr. Davis for an example 

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of why we needed very high resolution. Mr. Davis selected a Soviet 

radar associated with a Soviet missile system for his analysis. His 

study indicated that to be absolutely sure of the characteristics of 

the radar, it would be necessary to obtain photography with resolution 

If 

this is the case, it has very serious implications. To react to this 

situation you would have to be the Secretary of Defense to make such 

a decision. At present he gets such estimates along with force 

requirements and then must make the judgment. Another example of the 

puzzle is the Soviet MIRV. Should we be able to photograph one, the 

question still remains whether or not we can deduce anything by 

optical means. With regard to saying what you can save by better 

estimates and better intelligence, it is perhaps more important to know 

that the money you have spent you have spent correctly. Another example 

is the Tallinn missile case. We have had the capability to assess this 

system for some time, but we have, unfortunately, always had poor 

pictures of this system for a variety of reasons. Therefore, it is 

important to make the case for the average resolution provided by the 

system. We should get AFNIN and DIA to think in these terms. 

SUMMARY OF ACTION ITEMS: 

a. Determine the appropriateness of the aluminum mass substitutes 

for optical glass in the Eastman Kodak structural test COA. 

(Systems Office) 

b. Verify the materials properties of the spun cast solid rocket 

motor casings developed by UTC. (Systems Office) 

c. Study the principal factors of cost, schedule, lead time, 

configuration, etc. of rendezvous and resupply for MOL follow-on 

vehicles. (Systems Office) 

d. Amplify and expand data available on total program cost and 

schedule impact of an FY 69 NOA of $400 million for MOL. 

(Program Office coordination with Systems Office) 

Charts used in the presentation on file in SAFSLP. 

If Vice Director, MOL Program -I AMES T. STEWART 

jor General, USAF 

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