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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD 1 1 FEB 1966 

SUBJECT: PSAC Meeting, 9 February 1966 

1. A review of the MOL Program was presented to the Reconnaissance 

Panel of PSAC from 1500 to 1945 hours on 9 Feb 1966. Panel members 

present included Hornig, Land, Purcell, Garwin, Golivan, Koslov, 

Baker, Ling, Drell, Thomas, and Steininger. NRO, DDR&E and MOL 

personnel present included Flax, Generals Schriever and Berg, Fink, 

Yarymovych, Leonard, Tennant, Allen and Knolle. EKC personnel 

present for Tennant's and their presentation included Simmons, Oder, 

Sewell and Collinge. In the way of an overall summary of the meeting, 

I would say that the briefings were extremely well received and that 

the committee appeared to be completely satisfied with our approach 

and plans as presented. Following is a summary of the session. 

2. The agenda included: 

a. Introduction Dr. Flax 

b. Subject Overview Gen Berg 

c. Manned/Unmanned Review 

(1) Sensor and Operation Considerations Sam Tennant 

(2) MOL System Impact Dr. Leonard 

d. Sensor Status Jim Collinge 

John Sewell 

e. Schedule and Conclusions Gen Berg 

3. Dr. Flax introduced the briefing as the MOL report on the dual mode 

(Manned/Unmanned) studies and indicated that CDP was proceeding on 

that basis. The schedule information presented was the proposed schedule 

but subject to change as the CDP proceeded. 

4. Following Gen Berg's overview of the agenda, Sam Tennant presented 

his briefing on the Sensor and Operation Considerations of the Dual Mode 

system including the initial look at uses of the additional weight available 
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in the unmanned mode. The committee essentially had no questions 

on Sam's presentation and seemed pleased with our approach to the 

incorporation of the dual mode. Land was interested in the status of 

our V/H sensor development and this was discussed by Lew Allen. 

Garwin felt that we had used the sizing of the cryogenic tanks to 

determine the 41 days mission life of the unmanned system. This 

was discussed at some length and it was indicated that this was 

our initial look. 

5. Dr. Leonard presented the impact of the Dual Mode on the MOL 

Systems. This briefing was also very well received. It was pointed 

out that the approach to automating the lab had been shown previously 

to Joe Shea and he was in agreement with our approach. 

6. Jim Collinge presented the first part of the EKC briefing to include 

the areas of Optical Manufacturing, Thermal Control and Alignment 

problems. There was considerable discussion by the committee 

concerning the EKC proposed fixed slats riding on the tracking mirror 

for view factor control. Although several members felt intuitively 

there must be some fault with this approach, it was finally agreed 

that it was a clever approach and would do the job. Any major concern 

of the panel over the thermal problem seems to be now satisfied. John 

Sewell followed with a discussion of the dynamics problem. The panel, 

and Garwin in particular took EKC to task on the depth of their analysis 

of the dynamics problem. Later in the executive session he stated that 

he felt their briefing in this area indicated a questionable competence 

to properly perform the dynamics analyses. In response to his concern, 

it was pointed out in the executive session that we have an Aerospace 

group also working this problem and that it appears that one of the major 

causes of the dynamic problem was the EKC design of the tracking 

mirror riding on the lens barrel. It was indicated that we were looking 

in house at different approaches to mounting the tracking mirror. The 

panel was in complete agreement with this course of action. 

7. In conclusion, General Berg presented the new nine flight program 

with the first two unmanned and the remainder in the manned-automatic 

mode with option of flying the last five as manned manual or complete 

automatic (unmanned) flights. Three automatic kits would be ordered. 

The flights would be on 4 month centers with the first manned flight in 

June 69 and the first all up optical system going on the second manned 

flight in Oct 69. Several questions arose out of this concluding 

presentation: 

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a. Garwin was concerned as to how the four month cycle time 

between the decision to go manned or unmanned was determined. 

It was pointed out that it was desirable to make this decision at the 

factoryso that the factozysystem run could be made in the flight 

configuration prior to going to the pad. 

b. Land wondered if the unmanned sensor system would be 

configured as now planned if we had never heard of the manned 

requirement first. It was pointed out that the accuracy of IMC now 

planned for the tracking sensor essentially makes the two approaches 

identical. 

c. Land also wondered if we should at this time designate one 

of the last five flights as an unmanned flight for planning. It was 

agreed that the fourth manned flight (June 70) would be designated 

as an unmanned flight. 

d. Hornig asked if the new schedule was affected by budget 

considerations. Dr. Flax indicated only that it was to a lesser 

degree than the original schedule. He also pointed out that the 

Oct 69 date was paced by the sensor. 

8. Some general comments and points were brought up in the 

concluding discussions around the table: 

a. Land and Garwin were interested in possible night photo 

applications. 

b. Land remarked that we were scheduling on things that do not 

exist such as the V/H sensor. This was not a critical remark, but 

rather one of observation of the "times". 

c. Garwin questioned what could be tested on the first two 

unmanned flights. He also asked about the status of 20 mega bit 

readout links and the problems of doing this unmanned. 

d. Land raised the question of rendezvous and the apparent 

desirability of changing crews with less expensive vehicles. 

e. Steininger inquired as to the status of other experiments. 

Sea Surveillance and COMINT were briefly discussed by Dr. Flax. 

Steininger also raised the question of the value of using this sensor 

as an astronomical telescope. 

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f. The ability to use the manned system 

was discussed during Leonard's presentation. The 

panel discussed the difficulty of automating the unmanned system 

to do this job. 

g. Slit image intensifiers 

were discussed. 

h. In the event the political situation should deny the use of 

the man on the initial flights we should attempt to protect the ability 

to go unmanned as early as possible. 

BYRON F. KNOLLE, JR 

Lt Colonel, USAF 

Deputy Director 

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