The Real Story of The Secret Space Station

The main goal of America’s space program in the 1960s was to keep up with, and eventually outdo, the Soviet Union. Space exploration and technical advances were the gravy that came with the race. But one classified project had a different goal- to spy on the USSR. As satellites were developed, both sides started using them for reconnaissance. The U.S. military wanted to step things up with the Manned Orbital Laboratory, essentially a space station orbiting the earth with two astronauts aboard whose 40-day missions would be to take photographs of sensitive targets in the Soviet Union. The program began in 1963.

The MOL design quickly took shape. Essentially a 10-foot-diameter pressurized tube with solar and fuel cells for power, the lab would launch into low orbit atop a Titan rocket. After more than a month circling the planet, their supplies running low, the two-man crew would pack up their film and pile into a reentry capsule for the fiery journey back to Earth. The MOL’s main section would tumble down separately. “Upon mission completion or ascent abort, the laboratory vehicle shall be disposed of in the ocean to avoid compromise of intelligence information,” the Air Force’s MOL operating manual explained.
The Air Force portrayed the program as a giant science project, downplaying the MOL’s military missions. “Experiments related to reconnaissance will attempt to determine man’s capability, with appropriate aids, to point an instrument with accuracy better than 1/2 mile, to adjust for image motion to better than 0.2 percent and to focus precisely (if this is necessary),” Brockway McMillan, Under Secretary of the Air Force, wrote in a letter to one of his generals in March 1964. “These objectives will be classified under normal military security as SECRET.”

The MOL itself wasn’t a secret, but its true purpose was classified until this year. The program was discontinued in 1969, just a year before the first MOL was scheduled to launch. While there were concerns about the project destabilizing relations with the Soviets, that wasn’t the reason it was cancelled. Read the real details about the project at The Daily Beast.