Military alternative to Mercury capsule

I was digging around on the National Reconnaissance Office's collection
of declassified documents:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/collections.html
.... and stumbled on this pdf with a cutaway of a manned spacecraft
that's based on the design of the Discoverer/Corona film return capsule:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/WS117L_Records/53.PDF (see page 15}
Atlas-launched like Mercury, it would also have a added stage using the
second stage engine of the Vanguard.

Pat

Pat Flannery scribbled something like ...

I was digging around on the National Reconnaissance Office's collection
of declassified documents:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/collections.html
... and stumbled on this pdf with a cutaway of a manned spacecraft
that's based on the design of the Discoverer/Corona film return capsule:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/WS117L_Records/53.PDF (see page 15}
Atlas-launched like Mercury, it would also have a added stage using the
second stage engine of the Vanguard.


I'll download that in a bit, but is this one of the Lockheed thoughts that
are discussed in
Space Review's pages on the Samos E-5?

/dps

On 9/17/2011 12:28 PM, Snidely wrote:
Pat scribbled something like ...

I was digging around on the National Reconnaissance Office's collection
of declassified documents:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/collections.html
... and stumbled on this pdf with a cutaway of a manned spacecraft
that's based on the design of the Discoverer/Corona film return capsule:
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/WS117L_Records/53.PDF (see page 15}
Atlas-launched like Mercury, it would also have a added stage using the
second stage engine of the Vanguard.


I'll download that in a bit, but is this one of the Lockheed thoughts that
are discussed in
Space Review's pages on the Samos E-5?

Yup, although the layout of the capsule is different.
Scott Lowther put up an article about it on his website:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=11795
With some pages of the PDF; we are having a fun time discussing it.
Amazingly, that PDF was the first thing I read on the NRO website. A lot
of their declassified data are things like one page letters and such.
The KH-9 “Big Bird” was put on display today, with photographing it
being okay; photos and video of it he
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1568
....lots of gold plating and foil around the film reentry capsules.
KH-8 Gambit will be revealed tonight indoors.

Pat