NASA Discovers Space Spies From the 60's

Saeed al-Sahaf writes "In a room forgotten for more than thirty years at NASA's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, NASA recently found suits for space spies. Originally thought to be Gemini suits, the manufacturer determined that they were suits from a short-lived Cold War-era military program to put a manned reconnaissance station in space. Begun in 1964, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program was an Air Force initiative that would have sent Air Force astronauts to a space station in a Gemini capsule. After spending a few weeks in orbit, the crew would undock and return to Earth. An interesting blast from the past."

Comments

"We must control the high ground!"

[Animats]

In the 1960s, the USAF thought that the next generation of air combat was going to be in space. After all, they already had airplanes that could just barely make it into space for a short period.

So they had the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, the Dyna-Soar program, and the USAF Space School. None of those survived the 1960s, although they were all good, workable ideas. The MOL incorporated the Gemini spacecraft, the best space flying machine to come out of NASA. (Mercury was the "man in a can" capsule, and Apollo was less maneuverable.)

As for the blue MH-7 suit, there's one of those on display at Wright-Patterson AFB.

Why not sell that junk on ebay?

[glrotate]

Send one or to to the Smithsonian and put the rest on ebay. I bet if NASA unloaded all their old junk they could probably fund another R/C car mission to Mars.

Re:Wow... the 1960's..

[AKAImBatman]

I almost forgot my favorite bit of 1960's tech:

Skin tight Space Suits

As crazy as it may sound, these suits (correctly named "Space Activity Suits") were designed to actually *expose* the wearer to hard vacuum while still providing life support for the astronaut! This sort of suit would allow astronauts to have the same working freedom in the suit as the freedom enjoy inside the ship! Such a suit could make regular space construction and maintenence possible. It's also safer than regular suits as it is far less susceptible to depressurization. Perfect for environments like Mars where spacesuit damage becomes a major concern!

Not gone, just bye

[fm6]

You think things are less paranoid now? There's more orbital surveillance now than ever! This is "quaint" only because it assumed that orbital surveillance required somebody to be physically present.

Back in the 40s and 50s, there was a lot of talk about doing things like surveillance (you can see a lot) and communications (a lot of people can see you) from orbit. One common assumption (which turned out to be correct) was that these things would be extremely important in the near future. Another assumption (which turned out to be totally wrong) was that this would be done by sending people to go live in orbit. Once there, they'd use photography, electronics, and other technology that wouldn't be much more advanced that what people were familiar with. You can see this in Arthur C. Clarke's original proposals for communications satellites and in fiction from Clarke, Heinlen, and others.

What really happened, of course, is that rocket technology progressed relatively slowly, while electronics progressed very rapidly. So long before it was practical to a space station in orbit, it was practical to put a simple electronic gadget in orbit that would do all those chores pretty cheaply. Kind of sad, really -- if building better rockets had been more of an economic and military necessity, we'd probably be the space-going civilization that eveybody back in the 50s assumed we would be.

Then again, the need to build smaller and more reliable electronics did a lot to jump-start the computer revolution -- so we mustn't complain too much!

Re:someone was building a private collection...

[Anonymous Coward]

A related story:

The aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV-62) was originally named the USS Constellation. But there was something that held up on the original Independence's shipbuilding process, so the original Constellation was completed as the Independence... sometime later, there was a fire on the Independence's forecastle, and when the layers of grey paint were burned off, there was the logo for the USS Constellation!

Many years later, during a refit some engineers were going over the ship's blueprints, and "discovered" a compartment along the midship line, down in the ship. The compartment was opened (it had no doors or hatches into it, so they had to cut through a bulkhead), and the shipyard workers discovered a complete machine shop - the drill presses and lathes still covered in original preservative grease.

Apparently, during the ship's original construction, someone had walled up the machine shop.

So yes, the gov't can occasionally misplace things... :)