page_title: Manned Orbiting Laboratory
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Manned Orbiting Laboratory / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: MOL patch from NRO
context_page_description: The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was part of the United States Air Force's human spaceflight program. The project was developed from early USAF concepts of crewed space stations to be used for satellite reconnaissance purposes, and was a successor to the canceled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military reconnaissance space plane. MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, for which crews would be launched on 40-day missions, and return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft derived from NASA's Gemini spacecraft.
  The MOL program was announced to the public on 10 December 1963 as an inhabited platform to prove the utility of putting people in space for military missions; its use for satellite reconnaissance was a secret black project. Seventeen astronauts were selected for the program, including Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr., the first African-American to be chosen as an astronaut. The prime contractor for the spacecraft was McDonnell Aircraft; the laboratory was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company.
context_section_description: At the height of the Cold War in the mid-1950s, the United States Air Force (USAF) was particularly interested in reconnaissance from space, as there was intense interest in the Soviet Union's military and industrial capabilities. In July 1957—before anyone had flown in space—the USAF Wright Air Development Center published a paper that considered the development of a space station equipped with telescopes and other observation devices. The USAF had already started a satellite program in 1956 called WS-117L. This had three components: SAMOS, a spy satellite; Discoverer, an experimental program to develop the technology; and MIDAS, an early warning system.
  Starting in 1956, the United States had conducted covert U-2 spy plane overflights of the Soviet Union. Twenty-four U-2 missions produced images of about 15 percent of the country with a maximum resolution of 2 feet (0.61 m) before the downing of a U-2 in 1960 abruptly ended the program. This left a gap in American espionage capabilities that it was hoped spy satellites would be able to fill. The launch of Sputnik 1, the first satellite, by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, came as a profound shock to the American public, which had complacently assumed American technical superiority.
  One benefit of the Sputnik crisis to American space policy was that no government protested Sputnik's overflying their territory, thereby tacitly acknowledging the legality of satellites. While there was a big difference between the innocuous Sputnik and a spy satellite, it made it all that much harder for the Soviets to object to one. In February 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the USAF to proceed as quickly as possible with Discover (also known as Corona) as a joint Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-USAF interim project.
  On 18 August 1958, Eisenhower decided to give responsibility for most forms of human space flight to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald A. Quarles transferred $53.8 million (equivalent to $367 million in 2018) that had been set aside for USAF space projects to NASA. This left the USAF with a small number of programs with a direct military impact. One was a delta-wing, rocket-propelled glider that came to be called the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar. The USAF remained interested in space, and in March 1959, the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General Thomas D. White asked the USAF Director of Development Planning to prepare a long-range plan for a USAF space program. One project identified in the resulting document was a "manned orbital laboratory".
  The USAF Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) issued a request to the Aeronautical Systems Division (ASD) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on 1 September 1959 for a formal study to be conducted of a military test space station (MTSS). The ASD asked components of the ARDC for suggestions as to what sort of experiments would be suitable for an MTSS, and 125 proposals were received. Twelve contractors made proposals. A request for proposal (RFP) was then issued on 19 February 1960, and twelve firms responded. On 15 August, General Electric, Lockheed Aircraft, Martin, McDonnell Aircraft, and General Dynamics were awarded $574,999 (equivalent to $3.78 million in 2018) for a study of the MTSS. Their preliminary reports were submitted in January 1961, and final reports were received by July. With these in hand, on 16 August 1961 the USAF submitted a request for $5 million (equivalent to $32.8 million in 2018) in funding for space station studies in fiscal year 1963, but no funding was forthcoming.
  In its 26 April 1961 project plan, Dyna-Soar was to be launched into space on a suborbital ballistic trajectory by a Titan I booster, with its first piloted suborbital flight in April 1965, followed by its first piloted orbital flight in April 1966,  In a 22 February memorandum to the  Secretary of the Air Force, Eugene Zuckert, the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, decided to fast track Dyna-Soar and save money by skipping the suborbital testing pha
caption: MOL patch
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