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Apollo 8 - part 4 (NRO)
Introducing the classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) military agency

Note: the NRO will play an important role in this TL. Its long running relationship with NASA is just amazing for such a secret military agency.

“The National Reconnaissance Office spends another 1 billion dollars yearly flying reconnaissance airplanes and lofting or exploiting the satellites that constantly circle the Earth and photograph ennemy terrain with incredible accuracy from 130 miles Up”
Benjamin Welles, the New York Times – January 22, 1971
(It was the first time ever that the NRO existence was mentionned publically... the black agency very existence was not publically revealed before the end of Cold War, in 1992 !)


“...presumably through new real time spy satellites being developed that will transmit copious photographic and electronic data collected over the Soviet Union, China or other “targets” intantaneously to U.S Earth stations for fast analysis.
Currently most U.S satellites spew forth data in packets which specially trained air crews recover in mid-air over the Pacific, then fly to Rochester for processing and Washington for analysis – a time consuming process”.
(the same Benjamin Welles, in the Christian Science Monitor dated 23 April 1973. This time Welles had perfectly guessed the KH-11 that only flew in 1976 (!) ; and all the previous spy satellites the NRO was using at the time – Corona, Gambit and Hexagon !)


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