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ART' 1.1. 644 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

NRO APPR 

RELEASE 1 JULY 2015 

THE NRO STAFF 15 September 1969 

MEMORANDUM FOR CAPTAIN GEIGER ‘44)...) 

SUBJECT: The Rationalization of VHR 

PROBLEM 

Why is there no viable rationale for very high resolution (VHR) satellite photography? 

BACKGROUND 

Several high-powered studies have attempted to establish 

a case for VHR photography, mostly in support of MOL. A 

number of these (e.g., the Foster Study /Ad Hoc Evaluation 

Group/) have made innumerable arguments,-Many of which were 

fairrS, impressive. Taken together, they ought to have made 

an unshakable rationale for VHR. That they have not made a 

sufficient case to justify MOL is a matter of record. Whether 

they have made a sufficient case to justify funding any other 

VHR development is a matter of doubt. 

DISCUSSION 

There are two different sets of difficulties in rationalizing VHR: structural and procedural. The former are inherent 

in the problem and should be understood, but must be lived with. 

The latter are perhaps less important, but can e -ameliorated. 

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS 

The first of the structural problems derives from fundamental economics--there are always an unlimited number of 

claims on an always limited set of resources. Therefore, VHR 

must compete for resources and priority with other desirable 

goods and services. It will always be inherently difficult to 

get complete community, let alone DCI, support for VHR when 

there is the possibility that VHR funding might come at the 

expense of not meeting more pressing requirements such as 

search and surveillance. Given a secure KH-9 program, support 

for meeting technical intelligence requirements with VHR might 

be more forthcoming. 

GAMBIT HEXAGON DORIAN 

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Speaking of economics, a brief digression may be profitable 

to consider the economic nature of intelligence. NRP intelligence is usually a free commodity to a principal ultimate 

consumer, the military commander. Since he does not have to 

pay for this useful commodity, he will demand it within limits 

imposed only by his appreciation of political and technical 

feasibility. Should a commander be forced to choose between 

a squadron of aircraft and a knowledge of enemy troop disposition, he might choose in some circumstances to forgoe the 

intelligence for the additional force. In this same way 

an analyst eager for VHR detail forcedto choose between 

meeting his technical intelligence and,surveillance requirements, might conclude he would miss a surveillance capability 

more. The conclusion from this excursion into the economic 

obvious is this: Lowering the cost of a program that meets 

search, surveillance, and technical intelligence requirements 

increases the chance of having the VHR component of that program approved by those to whom intelligence is not free. 

(In principle, the same benefit could be obtained by increasing the amount of total resources available.) 

A less obvious aspect of this question of economics and 

the priorities it engenders is the question of requirements 

fulfillment. Let us say that genuine, universally agreed 

valid intelligence requirements are set up that are met by 

a VHR system 100% twice a year. It may well be that the 

intelligence community will prefer to see a lower cost and 

higher frequency KH-8 system meet 80% of these requirements 

quarterly. The intelligence community cannot be expected 

to make this sort of decision without experience on both sides, 

and asking them to choose the unknown over the known is 

difficult. 

The second problem is the difficulty in defining very 

high resolution requirements. Requirements statements are a 

product of experience and there has been very little experience 

in VAR over denied areas. 

Col Lycan has written a definitive memo on the definition 

of VHR which clearly shows the flexibility of the term. The 

heart of the problem is structural. Each intelligence target 

in the overhead reconnaissance inventory has a range of 

resolution requirements corresponding to what is desired to 

be known at any given time about that target. These requirements vary for a given target and a given time, but they range 

down to the equivalent of . The time 

that VHR is required for a given target complex, such as a 

submarine basin, is not generally known until after the 

photograph has been taken. 

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Partly as a consequence of this problem, there has never 

existed a consolidated list of actual targets requiring VHR. 

The third structural problem Is a product of the first 

two. Given a requirement for VH' on a specific target, at 

what point does further resolu+ion in crerhead photography 

become less desirable than sok. other input to the EEIts 

(in the larger sense of such elements)? Col Lycan, taking 

a poll of FTD analysts and PT's, determined that, in their 

opinion, photography of resolution would be required 

to satisfy essentially all of the EEI requirements for some 

163? intelligence targets selected to give a representative 

sample of all intelligence target categories. Even, however, 

if one were to take this statement (or the entire poll results) 

as a valid point of departure in establishing VHR requirements, 

there would be no way of determining for all classes of objects 

at all times the relative value of overhead photography at 

increasing resolution versus (1) photography of indeterminate 

resolution from a side aspect (elevation view) and (2) collection of some entirely different element of information input, 

such as infrared signature or radio frequency emissions. 

Thus, there is some limit for any intelligence target beyond 

which increasing resolution of overhead photography is less 

rewarding than investment in other collection means. The 

limits vary but are probably in the HR range for many targets 

much of the time. 

The final structural difficulty could be a problem were 

it not for compensatory DIA regulations. It will be mentioned 

for the record. There could be, without these procedures, 

justified fear that the listing of a resolution requirement 

for a given target will prejudice, if too low, any future 

improvement in resolution of that target, and, if too high, 

frequency of future coverage. No PI wishes to put himself 

in such a position. Because of this, changes up and down 

are permitted without prejudice. However, target acquisition 

in a high capacity system, such as DORIAN, is likely to be 

more closely related to target importance than target resolution requirements. Since such a VHR system would be operated 

in a largely surveillance mode against many targets not requiring VHR coverage, there is that much less support for a VHR 

capability with low requirement/use efficiency. 

PROCEDURAL 

One of the primary procedural problems, and probably the 

most difficult to get around, is the traditional tying of 

• 

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• -MP-SECRETrequirements to capabilities. This has the effect to estab11.shing firm requirements for Ulm systemsfAnd leak requirements for potential systems. 44-Ilso Te;da-ti;411-sk- the ry,#.- 

4- requirement with-the-systes. In the MOL case, VHR got tied 

too tightly to the justification of a manned system. 

These observations are not meant as critical of the 

requirements-capabilities tie because, ac it has been 

properly commented, one should not get in the habit of 

specifying requirements which cannot be met. Nevertheless, 

this has created specific problems. The PI's and analysts 

have experience with KH-4, KH-7, and KH-8 photography. They 

know how to specify requirements in that context. VHR 

photography from a satellite platform is essentially unknown 

to the grass-roots of the community and has thus failed to 

generate that demand for the product which could be expected 

to result from exposure to it. 

One of the chief culprits here has been the project 

BRAINSTORM management, which initially failed to calibrate 

the cameras used in acquiring the data and is laggard in 

disseminating the results to the community for assessment 

of resolution requirements. 

The second procedural problem is the possible prejudice 

generated by the nonsense in previous VHR justifications. 

For example, one of the most prestigious of these, the Ad 

Hoc Evaluation Group Study, tried to pad the argument for VHR. 

Because of the sacrifice of quality of argument for quantity, 

the study contained erroneous resolution information for 

both KH-8 and DORIAN and stated that VHR would solve the silo 

hardness question--when we don't even know the answer for 

our own silos. As another example, the recent SP statement 

of VHR requirements misinterpreted Col Lycan's EEI poll. 

In fact, this is probably not a serious problem, since 

it may be safely assumed that most of the high level decision 

makers have not waded through any of the details of these 

reports. Nevertheless, such errors are not harmless in that 

they create a bad impression on those that do read them and 

provide ammunition to the Selins and the Sorrelses. The 

leccort here is7hot -to raise, let alone force, an issue which 

cannot stand vigorous analysis. 

A third procedural difficulty is caused by the disproportionate support given by various parts of the community 

in formulating VHR target requirements. This effect has 

produced an imbalance in the listing of requirements. FTD 

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CONIIMIe IMMO 

was given two years lead time to develop DORIAN target listings 

compared to the less than six months for the Army and Navy, and 

hence, the air and space weapons requirements are much firmer 

than are the statements in the other categories. (The reason 

for this was that MOL was an Air-Force-only program for too 

long.) 

On the subject of target listings, the request for VHR 

target listings for DORIAN that went out from DIA to the 

community neglected to specify listing format. The results 

were consequently too various (magnetic tape, punched card, 

different coordinate systems) to combine before the program 

was killed. 

The final problem is associated with implied inflexibility 

in the statement of requirements. Often a requirement will be 

stated in terms of a target, such as an airfield for experimental aircraft, unconditionally requiring VHR, when actually 

the VHR is only required when a new aircraft or missile is at 

the field. By explicitly recognizing conditional VHR requirements 

and the possibility of preknowledge of a target condition, one 

may develop more realistic requirements, easier to satisfy. 

Such as-needed VHR requirement, might be met by a modified 

GAMBIT using the first bucket return to spot the VHR targets 

and by restricting the VHR activity to the last few revs, timed 

for good weather in the target areas. 

SUMMARY 

The reasons for our current lack of feel for the value of 

VHR and the failure of its rationalizations are structural 

and procedural. Structural problems include competition for 

resources with projects conceived to be more urgent, a lack 

of definition of VAR requirements and a lack of determinability 

of where VHR ought to be traded for other information. Procedural difficulties are probably less important and include 

the requirements-capabilities tie, the past misinformation 

associated with VHR, the lack of coordinated community support, 

and implied inflexibility in the requirements statements. 

RECOMMENDATION 

That future statements and studies on the value of VHR 

keep the above structural problems in mind and attempt to 

solve the procedural problems in their formulation. 

RICHARD L. GEER. 

Major, USAF 

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