science

nasa trivia

• the shuttle was designed to dod rather than civilian requirements because funding was contingent on launching space assets for the us military
• nasa flew ten classified shuttle missions for the dod, including one where they waived safety rules and launched north to put a keyhole spy satellite in an unusually inclined orbit. the same contractor that (probably) made the mirror for that satellite also made the hubble backup mirror
• radar satellites for topographical and oceanographical research were funded in part with the promise of collaboration with the us military to improve ballistic missile targeting
• eight apollo service modules flew classified cameras on loan from dod
• nasa collaborated with dod to maintain a cover story that the u2 was a nasa test aircraft when actually it was being used to obtain military intelligence on the soviet union