Relics Of USAF Recon Program, One Already Destined For NASM

If you've ever worked for a large and old organization which has downsized, you've probably found weird items from the past. Now, imagine how often that happens to NASA. Just this month, a NASA building at Cape Canaveral was being inspected by security officers, when they came to a door that was locked. And it hadn't been unlocked in a long time.

Nobody knew what was in there. After a while, they got in with the aid of a master key and found -- a lot of boxes, with signs that rodents had been in there... gnawing, and doing what rodents do with post-gnawed material.

What was in the boxes? As the security men checked, they found a lot of old papers, a lot of old film, and a couple of space suits. The suits were blue and still in pristine condition, and one of the suits bore only the number "007." The other bore the number "008" and the name "Lawyer" on the sleeve.

The suits were an old design, and an exciting find. But there was a germ of a mystery: NASA never had an astronaut named Lawyer.

The maker (not identified by NASA but probably Hamilton Standard, now Hamilton Sundstrand) checked the suit and determined that it had made the suit for a long-forgotten Air Force space program, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Announced with great fanfare in 1963 on the day that the Dyna-Soar lifting body program was cancelled, the MOL had some of the features of a space station. A crew of two would launch in a modified Gemini capsule, the Gemini-B, and on reaching the desired orbit, would be able to go through a hatch in the back of the Gemini into the MOL's work and accommodation spaces.

The MOL had indeed had an astronaut -- although the Air Force spacemen disdained the term, preferring to be called "pilots" -- named Lawyer, Richard E. He was a Captain when selected -- and a Lieutenant Colonel when the MOL was cancelled in 1969. The MOL program was, in fact, the successor to the U-2 and SR-71 spyplane programs.

The cover story, cheerfully disseminated in phony illustrations and press releases, and in articles written for schoolchildrens' news magazines, was that the two steely-eyed pilots on each mission would be conducting all kinds of science experiments for the betterment of mankind. There were even going to be some experiments for the men to do in their spare time, to help make the story stick.

The truth was that the MOL was a manned spy satellite. It would orbit with the base facing towards earth and the Gemini capsule facing towards the cosmos, because the biggest feature of the base of the MOL was the objective lens of a KH-6 camera, which featured a massive 71-inch mirror. The polar orbit at 150 miles of altitude was chosen as optimum for reconnaissance. After spending thirty days in space, working at "experiments," some of which only existed to provide a cover for the reconnaissance mission, the crew would climb back into the Gemini-B capsule and deorbit. At that relatively low altitude, the orbit of the MOL would decay and it would soon be destroyed by re-entry. But the critical imagery would have already been returned to Earth, either in special data capsules or in the Gemini with the crew.

All of the men selected for the MOL were Air Force or Navy pilots; after all, this was essentially a follow-on to the U-2 and SR-71 reconnaissance programs. The pilots would guide the satellite, and would direct the camera against targets of interest on the ground, and conduct collection for other intelligence disciplines that were enhanced by an orbital platform. They could, on command, send their data down to earth in a re-entry capsule, where it would be snatched from the sky by a helicopter or airplane and rushed to a base for processing.

There were three groups of pilots chosen; Richard E. Lawyer was in the first group of MOL pilots chosen from the USAF Test Pilots School by commander Chuck Yeager, in November, 1965. (Seen here, from left to right around an MOL model: Michael J. Adams, USAF; Albert H. Crews, USAF; John L. Finley, USN; Richard E. Lawyer, USAF; Lachlan Macleay, USAF; Francis G. Neubeck, USAF; James M. Taylor, USAF; and Richard H. Truly, USN).

Dick Lawyer's suit bore number 008. The significance of the numbers isn't certain, but there were eight pilots in the first group selected. Mike Adams would leave before the end of 1966 to return to the X-15 program, which was short one pilot after an accident (Adams himself would perish in the #3 X-15 after a Mach 3+ breakup).

The MOL program made considerable progress; there was even a launch schedule, but only the first launch, of an unmanned capsule with a boilerplate MOL made from a Titan fuel tank, took place, on November 3, 1966. It did prove that engineers had overcome one of the most important technical hurdles, though: Even though there was a hatch smack-dab in the middle of the Gemini-B's ablative re-entry shield, the capsule remained human-viable and sealed during the violence of orbital re-entry. While this test launch took place at Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral, a purpose-built pad complex, Space Launch Complex 6, was built at Vandenberg AFB in California -- it was closer to the makers of the MOL's secret innards, and well-suited for reaching the polar orbits useful for orbital reconnaissance.

There would be two more pilot selections; no more pilots would leave, but one, Maj. Bob Lawrence, would perish in a violent landing mishap, using an F-104 to simulate a lifting body or shuttle type descent. Lawrence was the IP and the accident was attributed to student error; both pilots ejected out-of-envelope and Lawrence did not survive his injuries. (Lawrence is best remembered today as America's first black astronaut; his astronaut wings were presented posthumously after a review of his case). After Lawrence's unfortunate death 14 men remained in astronaut training when the DOD cancelled the MOL abruptly on June 10, 1969.  The would-have-been astronauts were now the pinnacle of a heap of over fourteen thousand unemployed men and women. (Many of them were at prime contractor Douglas Aircraft in California). This was the first aerospace cut of many to come, in what would become a decade of bloody retrenchment. But a new spy satellite was in the works that could, on paper, do everything the MOL could do, without all the demands that life support for two humans in the harsh world of space imposed. Men in space cost real money, the Vietnam war and the War on Poverty had hoovered up all the money, and in the end it was all about the money.

None of the pilots, as far as we know, has gone on record as to how the news of cancellation struck, but it must have been shocking indeed. Then, NASA softened the blow -- for some. As the MOL pilots were the product of a selection process not unlike NASA's own, the space agency offered to take those astronauts who could limbo under an arbitrary age cut-off into its own program. Lawyer was born November 8, 1932. He was 36, when NASA set the cut-off age to 35: just eight months or so separated him from the seven astronauts accepted by NASA, all of whom would fly in the Space Shuttle program, and several of whom went on to stellar careers, including Dick Truly, who wound up as NASA Administrator, and Bob Crippen, who would command the first space shuttle flight in 1981.

At least some of the others were offered non-flying jobs by the space agency, and one, Albert H. Crews, took the job. The other pilots preferred to return to the Air Force, hanging up their space suits forever and taking up the varied jobs of USAF officers: experimental test flight, combat operations, staff work, procurement, squadron and wing command. As many of them had reconnaissance backgrounds, many of them went back to reconnaissance, which in the 1970s meant keeping an eye on cold and hot wars worldwide.

What happened to Richard E. Lawyer? Well, he returned to the Air Force and served in a number of other important jobs, retiring as a colonel. And he's still flying -- after all, he's only 73 years old. His license shows type ratings and experimental jet pilot and instructor qualifications (formerly LOAs) for a number of 1950s and 1960s jets, some of them planes that he continues to fly as an instructor at the National Test Pilot School of Mojave, CA, teaching new generations in such machinery as the F-86, F-100, and T-33. (Attempts to contact Col. Lawyer through NTPS for this article were not answered).

Lawyer's space suit, it turns out, was an MH-7 training suit. And NASA, checking its property books, found that it had transferred the suit (obviously, only on paper) to the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in 1983. Which may put a date on the last time there was anybody in that locked room at Canaveral. The suit is finally going to make it to its proper owner, which may display it. The second suit, Number 007, is apparently still NASA property and NASA is deciding what to do with it. (No, it will not fit Klyde Morris, and Klyde's already been to space).

Remember, also, that this may not be the last find to come from that Florida storeroom. There were also a large number of film canisters found. The bad news, however, is that the film was badly deteriorated -- to the point where it formed a fire hazard. There's no word at this time on whether there has been or will be any attempt to recover any of the film. During the 1960s, NASA was aggressive about filming all aspects of its operation. Did the Air Force treat the MOL program the same way? Either way, the possibility of more historic discoveries exists.

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.ntps.edu