The Manned Orbiting Laboratory
NASA's plan for it's first Space Station
The Air Force announced its plans for a space station project, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, on December 10th, 1963. Publicly, the goal was to test the military usefulness of having a man in space. In reality, that was a cover for the truth that the MOL was a sophisticated, manned spy satellite.
The program called for using a modified Gemini spacecraft, and the MOL, on forty-day military reconnaissance missions. The Gemini B spacecraft was a highly specific redesign of the version used by NASA. The biggest change was the inclusion of a hatch that would allow the astronauts access to the MOL through the Gemini B heatshield. The heat shield itself had to be larger because the spacecraft would be flying polar orbits, which would make reentry more difficult. Accommodating a hatch inside the already cramped cockpit required some minor changes in its layout.
The MOL would have three. At the top, an adapter module allowed access to and from the Gemini B. Then there was a habitation module for the crew, and then the equipment module.
The primary instrument for the MOL would have been the Keyhole-10. Codenamed Dorian, it would have included a 72-inch optical mirror telescope to take high-resolution photographs of locations on Earth. There was also sophisticated signal gathering equipment.
The Air Force selected seventeen astronauts in three classes. Group one was chosen in November of 1965. The second group was announced in June of 1966, and the final class was selected in June of 1967.
On November 3rd, 1966 the Air Force launched an unmanned test flight from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape. The booster was a Titan IIIC-9. Atop that was a mockup of the MOL itself and the refurbished Gemini 2 spacecraft.
Two unmanned qualification flights using actual Gemini B spacecraft and mockups of the MOL were planned for December of 1970 and June of 1971. Five manned launches were on the schedule beginning in February of 1972. These launches could have been from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as well as from the Cape.
The booster would have been the Titan IIIM, which was to be built by Martin Marietta.
Eventually, the Defense Department realized that unmanned satellites could do everything MOL was intended to do at a far less expensive price tag. The program was officially canceled on June 10th, 1969. NASA offered the MOL astronauts under 35 the offer to transfer to its program. Seven took them up, becoming members of NASA Astronaut Group 7. Among them was future NASA Administrator Richard Truly.
Many details about the MOL program were revealed when it was declassified by the National Reconnaissance Office in July of 2015.