The project was developed from early USAF concepts of crewed space stations as reconnaissance satellites, and was a successor to the canceled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military reconnaissance space plane. Plans for the MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, for which crews would be launched on 30-day missions, and return to Earth using a Gemini ...

Mar 4, 2017 · At the peak of the space race – when the Soviet Union was considered a threat, and the Beatles were a hot new band invading American music – the United States had a partially classified human space...

Jan 4, 2016 · A newly released treasure trove of historical data reveals intriguing details about a secret Cold War project known as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL).

Jun 11, 2024 · Approved in 1965, the MOL Program envisioned a series of space stations launched from a new pad in California and placed in low polar Earth orbit. Two-man crews, launching and returning to Earth aboard modified Gemini-B capsules, would work aboard the stations for 30 days at a time.

Jun 10, 2019 · Announced by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in December 1963 and formally approved by President Lyndon B. Johnson in August 1965, the MOL Program envisioned a series of 60-foot-long space stations in low polar Earth orbit, occupied by 2-man crews for 30 days at a time, launching and returning to Earth aboard modified Gemini-B capsules.

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was a 1960s Air Force program with the ostensible mission to place military personnel in orbit to conduct scientific experiments to determine the “military usefulness” of placing man into space and the techniques and procedures for doing so if the need ever arose.

In the spring of 1964, the USAF began work on the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), an evolution of the earlier "Blue Gemini" program, which was conceived to be an all-Air Force parallel of NASA's Gemini efforts.

Nov 3, 2022 · The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was as ambitious as it was secret, made to push the limits of what was possible in space at the time. MOL was designed to test new abilities and fulfill a top-secret reconnaissance mission of providing rapid response intelligence collection.

Apr 15, 2020 · MOL was a manned space station whose primary purpose was reconnaissance photography. It derived from the Manned Orbital Development System (MODS), which was the Air Force’s Space System Division’s idea to use NASA Gemini hardware for …

Oct 28, 2024 · The military Dyna-Soar (X-20) space glider was cancelled and the USAF ambitions for space were reduced to a small military space station called the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL), which was announced December 10, 1963.