posted 02-27-2007 12:59 AM               

Spies in the Sky: Surveillance Satellites in War and Peace
Series: Springer Praxis Books
Subseries: Space Exploration
Norris, Pat
Jointly published with Praxis Publishing, UK
2007, Approx. 220 p., 30 illus., 10 in colour, Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-387-71672-5

In 'Spies in the Sky' Patrick Norris responds to the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age -- the launch of Sputnik 1 -- with a review of the most important historical applications of space science for the benefit of the human race during that half century, focusing particularly on the prevention of nuclear war. The author addresses the oft quoted conclusion that the Moon landings and the race to the Moon between the two superpowers were a side effect of the Cold War, by describing what he believes was the more important event -- the use of satellites by military to prevent the Cold War becoming a 'hot war'. In developing the story the author casts a spotlight on a little-known aspect of the Space Age, namely the military dimension. Today military satellites represent 25 percent of all satellites in orbit, and they are just as important now in preventing regional nuclear war as they were in preventing global Armageddon more than 30 years ago.

Beginning with a discussion of Sputnik 1, and the impact of its launch, both on the Soviets and on the West, the book continues to show the social, economic and scientific benefits of satellites today in our daily lives some 50 years later. The author introduces the concept of the Cold War nuclear stand off and mutually assured destruction and shows how spy satellites developed, and the problems of using them to verify arms limitation treaties. He identifies the significance of the ABM Treaty and of SALT and demonstrates how satellites were used to underpin such agreements. He then discusses fringe nuclear powers, such as the UK, France and China and the concept of nuclear non-proliferation. He concludes by looking at the regional tensions of today, including Israel and Arabic nations, India and Pakistan and the threat posed by North Korea, and looks ahead to what the future holds.

posted 02-27-2007 09:45 AM               

I knew you would be interested!

posted 02-27-2007 02:24 PM               

You won't find anything new on the KH-7/8 or 9 in this person's book, because if they did have that information, I would have heard about it, and I haven't. (I happen to have a fair amount of info on the 7, 8 and 9 that I have not published yet, but it is still pretty sketchy.)

posted 02-27-2007 04:24 PM               

Of course, it doesn't take a genius to see that if the Agena can do the job from the start, then the OCS is not really needed at all. When they went for the KH-8 update, Lockheed bid the Agena and GE bid their OCS. By using the Agena, you could actually add more payload (like control gas) to the spacecraft and get more lifetime out of it. The Agena won easily. (There was, however, a reason for using GE and its OCS in the beginning. That was because way too much work was being given to Lockheed and the NRO rightfully wanted to encourage other firms to become involved in spysat development. The problem was that Lockheed had acquired all the expertise.)

As for the launch sites, I don't have much in particular about the specific sites used for recon launches at VAFB. However, I have been to VAFB numerous times and been out to old launch sites. In December I visited the Blue Scout Junior site and an old Atlas ABRES site used for the AMROC test.

Camera systems? I've got some info on the KH-7, but less on the KH-8. The KH-9 remains pretty murky. I do know the camera designer and the camera program manager, but they cannot talk about the system. They do say that it was incredibly complex, however.

posted 02-28-2007 05:26 PM               

An interesting question for the KH-7/8 is the inclusion of the Secondary Propulsion System or SPS. From memory, this was a small liquid fueled rocket system consisting of two rockets on either side of the rear of the Agena. One thing I tried to determine was if this was first developed for the GATV target vehicle or for the KH-7. Or if they developed separate systems. I might have the answer in my notes, but cannot remember it. My suspicion is that it was developed for the GATV and then adapted. However, the Agena also had a restart capability.

Before I get off the subject, however, it is worth noting that the Agena provided something very useful for the recce birds: mass. It was harder for a vibrating camera to move all that mass around. So a bigger vehicle in place of the OCS had some distinct advantages.

The history of the Agena has not been told. I have a lot of data on its early years, up to around 1964 or 1965. Hundreds of documents from the program office. After that I have much less. Key questions:

-development of the KH-8 Agena version
-development of the Ascent Agena
-development of the geosynch Agena
-dramatic increases in lifetime (how?)
-the Agena E version (apparently only a paper study, but how serious?)
-development of the shuttle version and the multi-tank version

posted 02-28-2007 05:31 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
I will be happy to read and learn from anything you publish - anything I want from my wish list beyond that I will have to search for myself.

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-the Samos E-6
-alternative recon systems
-KH-7
-KH-8

What has really been holding me up on this series is that I don't have good photos to accompany the first article, which is largely a policy history of the decision to build other reconsats after Corona. I need to acquire a lot of photos of Eisenhower administration officials to accompany the article.

Other things in the works:

-a history of the KH-6
-more articles on the early DMSP program
-an article on intel monitoring of the Soviet manned lunar program (I have some good info on this, but need to acquire more photos)

posted 02-28-2007 05:54 PM               

Have you seen the Agena article from BIS Space Chronicles? I ordered it but never got it...

I have only a Lockheed booklet on Agena circa 1965 with some SPS iamges and details of early solar panels. I have a prized photo of the solar panels on the Agena A used to launch Midas II.

For such a well used upper stage the missing Agena history is disappointing for all of us who enjoy the histories.

posted 03-01-2007 08:26 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
I only wish I had enough information to do some articles myself but I will have to content myself in reading your articles as they come along.

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What subjects are you interested in?

posted 03-01-2007 08:30 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
Have you seen the Agena article from BIS Space Chronicles? I ordered it but never got it...

I have only a Lockheed booklet on Agena circa 1965 with some SPS iamges and details of early solar panels. I have a prized photo of the solar panels on the Agena A used to launch Midas II.

For such a well used upper stage the missing Agena history is disappointing for all of us who enjoy the histories.

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I edited that issue of Space Chronicle. I was the person who encouraged the author to write that article in the first place.

There are some simple descriptions of the SPS around, but I have not seen a detailed discussion anywhere. I imagine that it is discussed in the official KH-7 histories, but those remain classified.

I have an illustration somewhere showing a large solar panel carried aboard a late Corona mission. My suspicion is that this was a test for equipment later used on the KH-8.

posted 03-01-2007 12:38 PM               

I understand the lack of USAF interest in Agena; when I visited SLC-3E for the AC-141 rollback I saw no evidence of the rich history at the dual sites that had launched Samos, Midas and Corona from PALC 1-1 and 1-2. The forlorn gantry at SLC-3W was just a year away from demolition.

Dedicated people such as yourself are badly needed to reveal the histories; apparently very few writers among all the participants.

posted 03-01-2007 01:17 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
I understand the lack of USAF interest in Agena;

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Well, some context is in order. The USAF is generally not set up to produce histories under contract. They don't have a long-standing contract history program. That means little money sitting around and what they do get they have to fight for. Also, space is not as popular as fighter planes in the Air Force.

NASA is different. NASA HQ has a very good history program and a long history of hiring contract historians. They also have extra money sitting around to fund small projects like monographs. So if somebody proposes a monograph idea to them and they like it, they can send some money that way. USAF is simply not set up to do it, even if they wanted to.

But there's a long tradition on the USAF side of not supporting space history. Vandenberg AFB, for instance, has an official historian who is incredibly difficult to deal with. They have a base "technologist" however, who is in charge of historical sites at the base, and he is outstanding. He doesn't have records, however, just buildings.

posted 03-01-2007 01:59 PM               

My current job will keep me from traveling and doing interviews for some years so any writing I accomplish will be mostly factual and dry without personal inputs but maybe images will help to tell the story.

Yes it is too bad you cannot get the financing you need or a grant as David Stumpf received for Titan II.

posted 03-02-2007 01:48 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
If you like I could try to scan the solar array and APS pages and e-mail to you. The report is LMSC-A605327 dated 9/26/64 and is 63 pages.

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posted 03-05-2007 03:25 PM               

My existing scanning software: I have to quit the program to save and then re-open.

posted 03-07-2007 05:33 PM               

-there were several solar cell options for the Agena. I didn't realize that. Unfortunately, the doc does not indicate which missions these were for.

-the doc mentions (I don't think you scanned it) the Agena subsatellite. I've written about that subsatellite before, notably in one of my sigint satellite articles. The subsatellite was used for the Agena "small ferret" missions. There were numerous variants. I think I had an article on that in the past year. It was initially billed as the "Discoverer subsatellite" and proposed as a round disk that would be fired off the Agena aft rack. It was then changed into a more angular spacecraft and there were many variants, including one for monitoring Soviet ABM radars.

posted 03-08-2007 09:02 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
The SPS was described as being used for 2 satellites in a spaced out orbit. The SPS was used to reduce the Agena orbit and later to reboost it for the second release.

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That's interesting. Jonathan McDowell can figure that one out. What it means, however, is that SPS was not developed for the KH-7.

posted 05-12-2007 08:31 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by cspg:
Spies in the Sky: Surveillance Satellites in War and Peace

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posted 05-13-2007 03:41 AM               

(Note: I don't have any specific commercial relationship with Springer-Praxis...just doing what they ought to be doing, that's all!)