« A fishy beginning | Main | @ApolloPlus40 - Tangtastic space food »

@ApolloPlus40 - The Manned Orbiting Laboratory

MOL-1.jpg

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was a US Air Force initiative to build a space station in Earth orbit for surveillance and research purposes.

It would have used Gemini capsules to deliver pairs of Air Force astronauts for missions lasting up to 4 weeks, but funding problems, particularly competition from the Apollo programme and the Vietnam war, eventually scuttled the programme.

Deeper background:

"The Best Laid Plans: A History of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory" a history provided by the Aerospace Corporation.

Some of the equipment is on display at the Air Force Museum.

Photo: US Air Force

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 30, 2009
Categories: ApolloPlus40 | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.nature.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8604

Post a comment

Comments will be reviewed by staff before being published. You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Excessively long entries may be cropped. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers or press releases.

We strongly encourage you to use your real, full name. Email addresses are required: this is just in case we need to discuss your comment with you privately. They won’t be published.


Please enter the numbers you see below - this helps us to cut down on spam. Note that attempting to post within 30 seconds of hitting ‘preview’ or ‘post’ can cause the system to think you are spamming the site. If you are having trouble with this system, you can instead e-mail a comment to 'inthefield at nature.com'.

Search