There was a very large US program to send up a photo sat manned, take pictures, and send back to earth in very small pods. It is a good read I will update post if I can find video.
I was only involved in Hubble after it was built, but my boss had conference proceedings from the early 70s were it was proposed that it would be a Skylab type space station with a crew of 3 loading photographic plates into a telescope and then developing them!
http://www.space.com/13004-declassified-spy-satellite-kh-9-h...