The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was part of the human spaceflight program of the United States Air Force. The MOL evolved into a space station, for which crews would be launched on 30-day missions, and then return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft derived from NASA's Gemini spacecraft. The MOL program was officially announced in December 1963 as a platform to prove the utility of putting people in space for military missions; its use for satellite reconnaissance was a secret black project. Seventeen astronauts were selected for the program, including Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr., the first African American to be chosen as an astronaut. Budget cuts repeatedly caused postponement of the first operational flight, and improvements in technology reduced the benefits of a crewed space platform over an automated one. A single uncrewed test flight of the Gemini B spacecraft was conducted on 3 November 1966, but the MOL was canceled in June 1969 without any crewed missions being flown.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1918:

World War I: British and Australian troops soundly defeated a German force at the First Battle of Dernancourt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Dernancourt

1942:

Second World War: The port of Saint-Nazaire in occupied France was disabled by British naval forces (ship pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid

1946:

The US Department of State released the Acheson–Lilienthal Report, a proposal for international control of nuclear weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheson%E2%80%93Lilienthal_Report

1999:

Serbian police and special forces killed about 93 Kosovo Albanians in the village of Izbica in the Drenica region of central Kosovo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izbica_massacre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

atompunk: (science fiction) A subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the society and technology of the Atomic Age (c. 1945–1965). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atompunk

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.   --Epistle to the Galatians https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Galatians