[FPSPACE] 1994 Moon Race Article, and more!

[Charles Vick]

Dear Ed,

 

The issue you raise here are not mine and I was just as surprised as you
were when they appeared. I have talked with you and been very mindful of
your issues and always respected them and I still do. If I have differences
with you it is because of the total all sources information available to me
that created the questions from a historic and technical point of view. I
remain very concerned about what can be said publicly until all the
information on the subject is officially declassified by both the US and
Russian governments if it ever is.

 

For many years now it has been apparent that the official space histories of
the former Soviet Union and Russia today have left many gaps in the details
for engineering historians to contemplate and closely examine. These first
fourth five years plus of the evolution of the information on the
Proton-Zond, D-1-e/SL-12 manned lunar circumnavigation booster and
spacecraft along with its ”G-3, 4”, facilities and the (Type-G, G-1-e)
booster of the Soviet manned lunar effort as it was then publicly called in
the West and today known as the TT-05 vehicles and the “J” facilities “J-1,
2”, vehicles the Soviet N1-L3 manned lunar landing booster and its
associated spacecraft still have many open questions. Information on these
programs continues to be very slowly declassified by both the U. S. and
Russian government and industry entities and this process is expected to
take perhaps fifty more years to be completed if not longer. 

 

Negative aspect of the analysis of this Soviet program are considered
entirely to sensitive for release due to the implied gentlemen’s agreement
between the US and former Soviet Union for détente-foreign policy and
intelligence, defense sources and methods reasoning. This is the case in
spite of the fact that the former Soviet Union no longer exist as a viable
nation State. It is clear from the small fraction of the information that
has already been declassified by both countries versus the in excess of
1,500 documents identified from one military intelligence agency alone but
not declassified that there remains considerable more to be declassified
that will rewrite the perception of this period of the “Lunar Race” history
although it will not change the historic end results. Looking at this and
realizing that much of the highly classified “American Think Perspective”
analysis of its intelligence community, (SCI) Sensitive Compartmentalized
Information (Top Secret-Sensitive Compartmentalized Information) (TS-SCI)
above top secret of letter, multiple word and color strip code covering the
rain bow of colors HUMINT, SIGINT and analytical study reports of which
there were numerous ones on this subject have yet to be declassified. By no
means has the full story been released as of this writing. Although CIA was
in charge of the Soviet space assessment for the political impact
technological surprise, analysis control reasons there was considerable
assessment disagreement between CIA verses DIA, USAFI, FTD (NASIC), ONI,
USAISC, MSIC, GIA and NSA on all issues concerning the “J” vehicle (Type-G).
CIA was in charge while all the others were subcontracted to CIA or another
agency listed here to provide information and analysis. 

 

By understanding the past historic mistakes in analysis of space
developments helps to correctly analyze future events in the competitive
space technology arena. We must remember that analysis is not devoid of
political influence because policy is dependent on analysis of intelligence
to develop policy and further policy must compel intelligence to be specific
about what it does not know. It must also be accepted that the final answer
to analysis is a political answer regardless of the analysis resulting
conclusions. The point is that CIA saw all the all sources of the
information on the lunar race and the other agencies did not which was why
CIA came to the conclusions it did. There came a point where CIA dropped out
of the game when it did not matter politically any more but the other
organizations continued to assess it under National Security Authority as
they had well before 1969.  Since we have yet to hear from US military
intelligence entities such as MSIC, DIA, NASIC/AIA, NSA USAFI, ONI and the
CIA, NPIC/NGIA, KH-8/Gambit and KH-9/Hexagon imagery has not been
declassified but are illustrated in
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2004/open-source_imager
y_follow-on.htm so we are far from seeing all documents released on these
programs from both the United States and Russia, it is therefore entirely to
premature to judge this history on what has been released. 

 

Sincerely

Charles P. Vick