# @nasaartemis on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/BkVcTqwg9qk
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/15343730-nasaartemis-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/1994894087.jpg
- **Posted:** 2018-06-22T17:17:50.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NASA Artemis (@nasaartemis) — https://gondola.cc/nasaartemis

## Caption

A long-lost spacesuit! In 2005, a venture into a long-locked room at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Cape Canaveral, Florida, uncovered interesting artifacts of a bygone era: retired spacesuits from Americans who trained in the 1960s to be astronauts aboard an Air Force orbiting reconnaissance laboratory. NASA Special Agent Dan E. Oakland and Security Manager Henry Butler, who is with Delaware North Parks and Resorts, the company that oversees the museum, discovered a locked room. Space suits from the Air Force's planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program, a 1964 Air Force initiative that would have sent Air Force astronauts to a space station in a Gemini capsule. 
After spending a few weeks in orbit, the crew would undock and return to Earth. A test launch from Complex 40 on November 30, 1966, of a MOL was conducted with an uncrewed Gemini capsule. The MOL was constructed from tankage of a Titan II rocket. The operational MOL was planned to be launched into a polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Air Force abandoned the program in 1969, but it produced a great deal of technological development, and three groups of military officers trained to be MOL astronauts. Seven of the younger astronauts were transferred to the agency's human space flight program and went on to have standout careers. Among them were Robert Crippen, pilot of the first Space Shuttle mission, and Richard H. "Dick" Truly, who later became NASA Administrator. 
Credit: NASA 
#nasa #fbf #flashbackfriday #spacesuit #nasahistory #capecanaveral #mol #gemini #vandenbergafb #artifacts #legacy #history #humanspaceflight

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 12,164
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 47

## Tags

mol, history, legacy, nasa, capecanaveral, vandenbergafb, spacesuit, flashbackfriday, humanspaceflight, fbf, nasahistory, gemini, artifacts

---
Copyright (c) Gondola