NRO-MOL_2015

118 The Dorian Files Revealed: a Compendium of the NRO’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory Documents
Several weeks later Dr. Brown directed Arnold to
contact the chairman and advise that the Air Force
Secretary would like to call at his Capitol Hill office to
discuss MOL. Miller proposed, instead, to visit Brown’s
office in the Pentagon. At this meeting on 14 January, the
Congressman and the Secretary agreed hearings would
be held but that they would be confined to seven areas:
the MOL booster, life support systems, tracking stations,
ships, recovery areas, schedules, and rendezvous.
They also agreed that Flax and Schriever would appear
before the committee, the exact date to be determined
by the chairman † . 8
The House committee hearings, initially set for 31
January, were rescheduled on 7 February. To prepare
for them, the MOL Program Office—assisted by General
Berg’s staff—undertook an intensive effort to prepare
non-DORIAN classified and unclassified statements
for General Schriever’s expected appearance.
Unfortunately, several days before the Committee was to
meet, the White House released a report on the nation’s
space program which drew unexpected and unwanted
public and Congressional attention to the program.
The Florida Uprising
On 31 January President Johnson submitted his annual
report to Congress on the U.S. aeronautics and space
program (for calendar year 1965). Simultaneously,
copies were released to the press and within days—
based on its content—the news media of Florida was
angrily denouncing the Air Force and its MOL plans. The
outcry became so great that Senator Anderson agreed
that his committee, which had been planning general
hearings on the military space program, would hold a
special session devoted solely to the MOL project.
The President’s report to Congress noted that a number
of unmanned MOL launches would be made from the
Eastern Test Range, using Titan IIIC vehicles, and that
at least five manned launches would be “flown out of the
Western Test Range.” This information was not new. Dr.
Flax, in response to a query from Florida Congressman
Edward J. Gurney (who represented Brevard County
including the Cape Kennedy area), had reported on the
above plans in general terms in a letter dated 2 September
1965. Various trade publications, such as Aviation Space
Technology also had noted that the Air Force would
launch MOL from the West Coast. 9 Unfortunately, the
President’s report went on to state that during 1965, the
† The chairman earlier agreed that Mr. Girardi might be briefed on the
program and this was done on 5 January. Senator Anderson, Chairman of the
Senate Space Committee was given a DORIAN-level briefing on 21 January
and, on 4 February, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, a member of his committee,
was also indoctrinated into the program.
Air Force had completed its Titan III.Integrated-Transfer-
Launch (ITL) facilities at the Cape—”a dual launch pad
facility” which possessed ‘’a high launch rate capability”
(and cost $154 million) and also had begun work on “an
initial launch capability at the Western Test Range.” ‡ The
latter, it said, would provide support “for polar or near
polar orbit mission requirements that would be degraded
if flown from Cape Kennedy.” 10
It was this information that the Florida media seized
on to raise a cry of “costly duplication” of facilities. In
a lengthy front page story, the Orlando Sentinel on 4
February castigated Air Force planners for “cutting loose
completely” from the Eastern Test Range and saddling
the U.S. taxpayer with unnecessary costs. It derided the
Air Force for claiming it was necessary to launch MOL
into polar orbit from Vandenberg, and cited unnamed
“veterans of the space program” as declaring such
a requirement was “nonsense.” Fulminating against
“certain Air Force space empire builders,” the Sentinel
urged Florida’s Congressmen and Senators, state and
local government officials and the citizens of the state “to
stop this threatened waste of national resources.” 11
Consequently, when Chairman Miller called the House
Space Committee into executive session on 7 February
to take testimony on MOL, Congressman Gurney was
primed for attack. It was immediately evident that the Air
Force’s informal contacts with the Chairman had paid off.
In an opening statement, he declared that “the Committee
had no interest in [MOL’s] mission or characteristics as
there could not possibly be any duplication in these
areas.” He advised the members to concentrate their
attention on those things common to the Air Force and
NASA programs to check duplication and he listed the
seven areas previously coordinated with Dr. Brown. 12
The first witness, Dr. Seamans, Associate Administrator
of NASA, began with a strong endorsement of the MOL
program. The space agency, he said; agreed the program
met national requirements and had assisted the Air Force
in a variety of ways, including conducting studies, dealing
with vehicle design. When Congressman Gurney’s turn
to ask questions came, he asked Dr. Seamans whether
NASA had ever successfully launched vehicles into
polar orbit from the Cape. Yes, it had, Seamans replied,
but in each case the space agency had required State
Department and DoD approval because of the safety/
overflight problem. Gurney pursued the matter, declaring
that, in his view, the total danger for an ETR polar launch
was no greater than a WTR launch and, “if NASA could
perform polar orbits from the Eastern Range, why
couldn’t DoD?” 13
‡ This data was provided by the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Research
and Development, Headquarters USAF,