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would photograph the Earth orbit and in that case, actually going on behind the curtain. How NASA had
a civilian agency would be going to have too much developed a secret relationship with CIA and DoD
inside-information about American Reconnaissance was not clear at that time.
program. National Air and Space historian Jim Davis Thanks to the declassified documents available
has documented this debate. now; most were declassified by those agencies under
We need to understand one point in a clear-cut the automatic and systematic declassification review
way. NRO’s “SPYSATS” (spy satellites) were already program. Some were acquired through declassifica-
taking pictures of Earth orbit for purely reconnais- tion requests.
sance purpose and they didn’t have to let NASA The 17-page document that journalist Matt No-
use their powerful spy satellite camera around the vak had obtained against the filing of a Freedom of
moon. It was another mystery. Maybe after 50 years Information Act (FOIA), is redacted in some parts
more declassification would see the daylight and we but it had enough materials to show that NASA had
would come to know what was the reason behind a very interesting relationship with the NRO and the
that decision. military agencies.
The NRO released declassified Project UPWARD According to Novak, “Air Force and NRO officials
records from their archives, in August 2014. NRO participated in the design of the Shuttle throughout
and NASA signed an agreement to transfer opti- the 1970s, in particular, the sizing of its manned orbit-
cal technology from the NRO to NASA and it was a er payload bay to accommodate anticipated space-
joint program; the agreement was signed between craft growth. The Air Force also contributed funds to
them. In 1967, NRO and NASA jointly decided to can- its development during this time. The Space Shuttle
cel the project. Why? That was also not very clear at was expected to meet the launch requirements of
that point but almost 50 years later declassification both NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD).
has revealed many clues that interlace strands of In January 1977, President Ford’s departing Deputy
missing logic. Secretary of Defense Clements executed a ‘NASA/
DoD Memorandum of Understanding’ that pledged
Secret expoSed the Defense Department to use the Space Shuttle
The US legislation clearly directed NASA to con- as its ‘primary vehicle for placing payloads in orbit.’
duct peaceful, scientific and open to all aeronauti- President Carter’s incoming Air Force Under Secre-
cal and space research and operations. The tons of tary, Hans Mark, who favored plans to use the Space
declassified documents, available now, show just the Shuttle as the primary launch vehicle for National
opposite. What could have been a guiding principle Reconnaissance Program (NRP) payloads, further
for NASA to conduct peaceful and scientific space re- reinforced this sentiment.
search, was violated for several reasons according to But it’s not long before we get to the stuff that’s
James E. David, NASA’s space division historian who still classified. For instance, the date when the NRO
wrote the highly praised book: Spies and Shuttles: launched its first satellite on the space shuttle?
“NASA’s Secret Relationships with the DoD and CIA”. Redacted.”
David thought, NASA could not and did not al- Moreover, during this time, after the cancella-
ways follow the mandate for several reasons. NASA tion of the project UPWARD, the US military agen-
and the US national security agencies needed each cies started rethinking the whole process. Whether
other’s help. They had to utilize each other’s hard- using the space shuttles is dependable or not, the
ware and facilities to accomplish their respective agencies officials started debating over that. Using
missions. This dependable reliance was necessary NASA space shuttles to get their assets into space
for several reasons. could bring their plans into open space.
NASA, CIA, DoD, and NRO were concerned about So the NRO and DoD had to start rethinking and
the foreign aeronautical and space programs. making some secondary plans.
Although the legislation directed NASA to conduct
peaceful and scientific research, the intelligence MiSSing linkS
and military agencies had enough reasons to moni- There is a good deal of distinct features and elements
tor and restrict certain NASA programs to eliminate in the NASA’s participation in Cover Stories and
threats to classified programs. The intelligence and Acquisition and Use of Classified Technologies in its
military agencies like CIA, NRO, and DoD felt that it Lunar Exploration Program.
was important to deny the enemy countries from We are not in a position to quote every declas-
accessing the crucial scientific data. sified document (ranging from 1 to 51), however,
Since this highly secret classification was in place we can give a screen-shot of document 18 where
at that time, it was impossible to know what was NASA and the DoD signed the “DOD/CIA-NASA

tehelka / 31 january 2019 20 www.tehelka.com