Lutwak,  S..  Vela Hotel Spaceraft Structural Design Criteria WITH Vela Advanced Spacecraft Program WITH Vela Hotel Structural....  Space Technology Labs & TRW,  1962+1965.  13pp+18pp  4to.  Very good condition.  THREE very uncommon items, including #3 "Vela Hotel Structural and Dynamic criteria for Flight Electrical and Mechanical Assemblies..." 1962. Space Technology Laboratories, 12pp. The Lutwak work published by STL is a general structural overview of the satellite and is a mimeo/blueprint of very limited internal distribution. **AND** "Vela Advanced Spacecraft Program" published by TRW is a collection of 18 sheets of diagrams of various assemblies plus an ORIGINAL photograph of the satellite. RARE.

The Vela Hotel project was the space-based arm of a nuclear weapons/testing surveillance program. "On Dec. 15, 1960, representatives of the Air Research and Development Command (AFMC’s grandparent), NASA, and the Atomic Energy Commission met at the Inglewood headquarters of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, SMC’s predecessor. There, they initiated a joint effort to develop a high-altitude satellite system that could detect nuclear explosions—at first in space, and, with later improvements, on the ground and in the air. The program was known at the time as Vela Hotel, and it was to be the space-borne portion of a wider effort—Vela—to detect nuclear explosions using other platforms as well. Its primary purpose was to monitor compliance with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty then being negotiated in Geneva. Over the next five to 10 years, it became a model of good management, good design, and good cooperation in military space programs. The division had started laying the groundwork for the program in 1959, when the Office of the Secretary of Defense had assigned overall responsibility for it to the Advanced Research Projects Agency. AFBMD created the Vela Satellite Program Office when ARPA assigned execution of the program to the Air Research and Development Command. ARPA had to reject AFBMD’s first development plan, which called for a development budget of $100 million, because it lacked enough funding. Finally, ARPA and AFBMD reduced the scope of the initial, 10-satellite program to fit a budget of about $15 million."--from the site of the Federation of American Scientists (http://www.fas.org/index.html)   $450.00