Declassified: U.S. had a secret military space program named Dorian

Newly declassified image of the proposed orbital structure for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory project run primarily in secret by the United States Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office (a U.S. government organization classified until 1992). The MOL project was designed to put Air Force personnel in space to spy on Russia, in particular, for up to 40 days at a time using photography and other tools. The program was announced in 1963 as an experimental program to test the viability of man in space, with its real purpose remaining classified until October 2015. MOL was decommissioned in 1969 after spending more than $1.3 billion and without a manned flight. (No detailed information was provided for the photo.) less Newly declassified image of the proposed orbital structure for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory project run primarily in secret by the United States Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office (a U.S. ... more Photo: US Government Photo: US Government Image 1 of / 98 Caption Close Declassified: U.S. had a secret military space program named Dorian 1 / 98 Back to Gallery

Turns out there was a secret military space program designed to put a manned station in orbit for more than a month at a time in order to spy on the Russians (and who knows for sure what else) ... and it nearly worked.

If the idea had worked then perhaps our night sky would be punctuated by military space stations instead of the one civilian-focussed International Space Station. Thank NASA, effective spy satellites, ICBMs and the Vietnam War for its demise.

The program — publicly called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and secretly called Dorian* within a government organization named the National Reconnaissance Office, whose existence was itself classified until 1992 — existed from 1963 until 1969. When newly elected President Richard Nixon killed its budget, the MOL/Dorian program had spent more than $1.5 billion.

The program had also test-launched its rocket design and had nearly begun full-scale production of the orbiting space craft (see photos above). Its recruiting and training was so effective and extensive, that many of its engineers and astronauts went to work for NASA, flew Space Shuttle missions and/or took up major positions in government ... such NASA administrator.

After declassifying MOL/Dorian documents over the summer, historians working for the Reconnaissance Office published in October an official history of the project called "The Dorian Files Revealed." Its 232 pages are packed with technical details, personnel and budgetary battles and Cold War motives.

Cover stories

While the MOL program was publicly announced in 1963 as an experimental program to test the viability of humans in space, its real purpose remained classified until the release of more than 800 documents (20,500 pages) and hundreds of photos. Its classified purpose was most-plainly stated in the official history of the project:

Unbeknown to the public, the MOL program included a highly secret set of experiments and capabilities to gain intelligence from space. Information about MOL's secret planned capabilities was strictly protected under a security compartment known as Dorian. The capabilities developed under the Dorian project would result in the United States using the MOL as a manned reconnaissance station in space, collecting both imagery and signals intelligence.

A CIA analyst, NRO staff historian and editor of "The Dorian Files Revealed" explained during a speech at the The Museum of Flight in September that our government's practice of devising a cover story for a classified project was an NRO specialty (especially since the NRO itself was secret).

James Outzen says in a YouTube video of the speech ...

"We have this dilemma, how do we obtain information from space? How do we get images and signals back? ... Cover story: We're going to carry out a number of launches, and we're going to put experiments into satellites which will help us understand, eventually, man's viability in space. Because if we're going to put man into space, we'll want to understand how to allow man to survive up there. "So, we're going to put some mammals into space, including chimpanzees, and there will be a number of other experiments put up. So that's the cover story. ... But the real story is we're trying to get camera systems into space, so that we can take pictures from space" (and get them back). At time-marker 41:17, Outzen adds, "In the 1960s the Air Force receives funding to put Air Force personnel into space. So that's the public story. The classified story is those personnel were going to be put into space to use space as a platform for gaining signal collection and imagery collection."

Outzen pointed out that the agency needed a cover story because, well, rocket launches are hard to to fire off in secret.

How secret was Dorian?

Journalists and others had for decades speculated about the military purposes of MOL, but even in the Smithsonian's extensive 1998 Air & Space article mum was the word.

... today, a polar-orbiting MOL sounds less like a Skylab-type undertaking than the first military outpost in space, a U-2 no Soviet missile could reach, and perhaps something more. That may explain why, 30 years on, those who worked on the project still won't say much about its mission. Lachlan Macleay, who was among the first group of MOL pilots chose in 1965, says only: "As far as I'm concerned, nothing has been declassified at all. We spent a lot of time in training, let me put it that way." President Lyndon Johnson gave MOL an official go-ahead in August 1965. Douglas Aircraft would build the laboratory module and McDonnell Aircraft the modified space capsule called Gemini-B. General Electric would manage the onboard experiments. Launches would be from both Cape Kennedy in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which would allow the lab to reach high enough latitudes to fly over the Soviet Union. The first unmanned shot was scheduled for 1968, with the first crew to follow later that year. Within hours of the White House announcement that MOL would go ahead, a dusk of secrecy settled upon the project, and from that point on the public would see only its innocuous exterior.

So, pretty secret.

In fact, during a symposium on Oct. 22 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, one of the MOL astronauts-in-training said,

"It is really hard to suddenly slip out of all of this classification that's been built into your psyche for all these years, even though there are things that are absolutely inexplicable near where these gentlemen worked. There is this great big building and it has a big sign in front of it that says the National Reconnaissance Office. And, the first lesson that (an official) gave to me when we were brought in was "You never even use the initials NRO. So, it is a little hard to adjust."

The MOL pilot went on to explain that the Dorian project was essentially designed to "try to add human judgment to this automated capability" of spy satellites of the era.

Just another cover story?

This probably necessary dynamic of cover story vs. reality is just the kind of thing that leads people to wonder: But is this the truth or just another cover story? Did we go to the moon or was that a cover story? Did we send men to Mars in the 1970s under the operation name "Project Redsun" and so NASA's current stated plans to go there in 15 years is the cover story?

Well, all one can do is weigh the reasonableness of the current story against what it would take to fabricate all those documents and photos and personal testimony.

That said, secret stuff is going on all the time. Could a government launch people into space without us all knowing about it? Hmmmmm. Can you tell the difference between a missile's fire trail and a space rocket's? Here's two recent news events that can make you wonder.

From SFGate:

A mysterious beam of light streaked across California skies Saturday evening, delighting and confounding Bay Area sky watchers. The light, described by many as a blue-green flash that flew horizontally before falling and lingered for as much as 10 minutes, was reportedly spotted as far south as San Diego and as far north as Santa Rosa. After hours of speculation and finger pointing by meteorologists, astronomers and military officials, the Navy confirmed a submarine had fired an unarmed missile off the coast of Southern California, creating a bright light that was visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona.

And ...

From The Siberian Times:

Astronomers at the planetarium of the Siberian State University of Geosystems and Technologies in Novosibirsk said of the early evening 17 November sightings: 'It is definitely not a comet.' Their theory was that 'the object was the second stage of intercontinental ballistic missile Topol launched at 15:12 Moscow time (or 18:12 Novosibirsk time) from Kapustin Yar cosmodrome in Astrakhan region.'

... just saying.

*"Dorian" refers to the KH-10 DORIAN Eastman Kodak mission reconnaissance imaging camera.

Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook. If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.