Manned Orbiting Laboratory - Cancellation

Cancellation

The program was canceled on 10 June 1969, with the first projected flight three years away. Between 1965 and 1969, MOL's projected cost rose from $1.5 billion to $3 billion while the Vietnam War took larger portions of the defense budget. While Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird and the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly supported the station, Central Intelligence Agency head Richard Helms did not support the project because he feared that the death of a MOL astronaut might ground launches and thus damage the nation's satellite reconnaissance program. President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger agreed to the Bureau of the Budget's proposal to cancel MOL, as it was determined the capabilities of unmanned spy satellites met or exceeded the capabilities of manned MOL missions. There were 14 MOL astronauts in the program when it was canceled, and NASA offered those under 35 years of age the opportunity to transfer to the NASA astronaut program. Seven of the 14 MOL astronauts were younger than 35 and took the offer: Richard H. Truly who later became the NASA Administrator, Karol J. Bobko, Robert Crippen, C. Gordon Fullerton, Henry W. Hartsfield, Robert F. Overmyer, and Donald Peterson. All eventually flew on the Space Shuttle.

An eighth member of the MOL astronaut corps, Robert H. Lawrence, would have qualified to take part in the NASA transfer if he had not been killed in a training accident in 1967. If he had been offered the opportunity, he would have preceded Guion Bluford, Ronald McNair and Frederick Gregory as the first African American to be selected to NASA's astronaut corps.

The Gemini 2 capsule used in the only flight of the MOL program is on display at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A test article at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio is the Gemini B spacecraft (sometimes confused with Blue Gemini). It is recognized by its distinctive "US Air Force" written on the side, and the circular hatch cut through the heat shield.