Space Suit Found In Bunker

'007 spy suit' found in Nasa bunker
By Irene Mona Klotz
at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida



The spy was definitely not called Bond, for that name is not among the
military officers selected 40 years ago to conduct reconnaissance
missions for the US from an orbital laboratory in space.
But secret agent Bond shares a number - 007 - with one of the US
spies-in-training.

Space historians are trying to find out who the mystery man is after
his spacesuit turned up, along with an identical outfit bearing number
008, in an abandoned space agency (Nasa) blockhouse last used to launch
Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom into space in 1961.

"I wish I knew how they got there," said Roger Launius, chairman of the
space history department at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in
Washington, DC.

Suit 008 was easier to trace, as the word "LAWYER" was emblazoned on
the left shoulder.

Though some, no doubt, would have applauded the idea, sending the Nasa
attorney into space was not part of the programme.

Rather, the suit belonged to Air Force Lt Col Richard Lawyer, a member
of the first group of eight military officers selected in 1965 to serve
in a programme known as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL.

Robot spies

Over the next two years, the programme, run by the Air Force in
cooperation with Nasa, signed up another nine aspiring space spies and
began training them for what was expected to be month-long missions
aboard an orbital outpost based on a modified Gemini capsule.

The programme died in 1969, as advances in robotics and satellite
technology began to match what the military wanted to achieve by
stationing human eyes in space - namely keep watch over its Cold War
Soviet foes - and do so at a fraction of the cost.

"The programme didn't get too far," Launius said. "In the end, the
programme didn't require humans in the loop.
"Plus, with the pressures on the military during the Vietnam War, it
was a pretty easy decision on the part of the secretary of defense to
cancel MOL."

Programme relics, including at least 22 flight training suits made by
Hamilton Sundstrand, were collected over the years and dispatched to
the Smithsonian, which serves as the official US space programme
archivist.

But at least two of the sky-blue suits disappeared.

No one knows how long the suits languished in the dark and
rodent-infested Blockhouse 5/6 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,
located adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center.

Space mouse

Late last year, however, fire marshals inspecting part of the facility
noted piles of decomposing film and deemed them a fire hazard, said
Luis Barrios, a design specialist hired by Kennedy Space Center to work
with its museum and tourist centre.

When security officials went to clean out the blockhouse, they found a
locked annexe with no key. After tracking down a master key, the
officers stumbled upon a blue box on the floor of the building and
opened it.

A hand-painted Nasa meatball emblem adorned the inside cover and
nestled inside the container were two blue spacesuits and four or five
pairs of gloves.


"We had to open it up and look at the suits because [with KSC] being a
wildlife preserve, you never know what else might be in there with it,"
Nasa security officer Dann Oakland said.
The officers did, in fact, find a mouse nest in the box and tossed it
away before packing up the space artefacts and taking them to a secure
site.

Lawyer's suit has already been shipped to the Smithsonian, which will
soon begin the restoration process. Suit 007 would be following
shortly, Barrios said.

For its efforts, KSC will be getting another MOL suit to display at its
visitors centre museum.

"It's a reward for something that nobody expected to have the good
fortune of finding," Barrios said.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...re/4072798.stm

wrote:
'007 spy suit' found in Nasa bunker
By Irene Mona Klotz
at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida





A hand-painted Nasa meatball emblem adorned the inside cover and
nestled inside the container were two blue spacesuits and four or five
pairs of gloves.




Early Apollo training spacesuits from the same time period were also
blue. I wonder if these are MOL training suits?

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-S67-23082.jpg

http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html



Rusty

Rusty wrote:
wrote:
'007 spy suit' found in Nasa bunker
By Irene Mona Klotz
at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida





A hand-painted Nasa meatball emblem adorned the inside cover and
nestled inside the container were two blue spacesuits and four or five
pairs of gloves.




Early Apollo training spacesuits from the same time period were also
blue. I wonder if these are MOL training suits?

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-S67-23082.jpg

http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html




This URL has a video showing the MOL spacesuits and where they were
found:

http://www.wesh.com/news/4583426/detail.html


Another view of NASA astronauts wearing blue Apollo training suits:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...-S67-23084.jpg

Photo caption: "Apollo 205/208 prime crew McDivitt, Scott and
Schweickart in CM-101 during training at NAA in Downey." January 26,
1967

http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html



Rusty

On 2005-06-10, Rusty wrote:

Early Apollo training spacesuits from the same time period were also
blue. I wonder if these are MOL training suits?

The article notes:

: Suit 008 was easier to trace, as the word "LAWYER" was emblazoned on
: the left shoulder.

: ...the suit belonged to Air Force Lt Col Richard Lawyer, a member of
: the first group of eight military officers selected in 1965 to serve
: in a programme known as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL.

--
-Andrew Gray

Rusty wrote:
Early Apollo training spacesuits from the same time period were also
blue. I wonder if these are MOL training suits?

All of the Apollo pressure suits were blue, but after the Apollo fire,
the removeable white, thermal and micrometeoroid outer covering, which
was originally to be pulled on over the pressure suit for EVA, was
fireproofed and made into an additional layer of the suit. The earlier
suits without the white outer layer were later used for training suits.

Other specimens of the MOL suits have an external white layer, although
I do not know if it was also for thermal and micrometeoroid protection.

John Charles
Houston, Texas