A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

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no near-earth orbit manned operations planned comparable to this.
It was further recognized that the ML was a necessary first step in
developing military operational systems in near-earth orbit.
The Department of Defense had found that joint NASA-DoD projects
have their limitations. There is generally a dispersion of authority
and responsibility. If an agency regards its share of this work as
merely a service for another agency, or if full agency prestige is not
on the line, support tends to diminish--"buckpassing" develops.
These
potential weaknesses are not limited to joint projects between agencies
but also apply to those carried on within agencies.
For example, the
split responsibility between defense-civil agencies, the Air Force, the
Army, and NASA in the advent military communications satellite projects
contributed to the troubles and later demise of that project.
Subsequently, MOL ran head-on into competition with NASA space
station plans.
In 1964, separate DoD and NASA efforts appeared to be
subject to only a minimum of coordination. Demands for coordination
resulted in a joint DoD-NASA agreement that study information would be
exchanged at the conclusion of the respective space station studies.
1965-Present
After 1965, DoD's MOL program was cancelled, NASA successfully
completed Project Apollo and the near-earth-orbit Skylab program using
Apollo hardware, and NASA began to develop the Space Shuttle. Concentration
has been on international cooperation and arms agreements banning
the basing of weapons of mass destruction in outer space. The
DoD has been concentrating its space activities on the use of unmanned
spacecraft for its traditional missions of surveillance, communication,
command and control, and early warning.