WHAT KILLED THE DYNA-SOAR?

THIS EXPERIMENTAL SPACESHIP WAS IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

June 12, 1967. Searchlights play silently against a swept-winged, batlike
machine resting atop a huge three-barreled Titan Ill booster. A computer rushes
through its final seconds of countdown. The giant spouts flame against steel
and a dazzling sun rises into the night sky. Dyna-Soar accelerates away from
Earth riding atop a rocket slingshot that will hurl it into orbit at five miles
a second.

Well, almost. The spaceplane was officially called the X-20, nicknamed the
Dyna-Soar. DynaSoar promised stunning ability in just about every facet of
spaceflight: a unique amalgamation of aircraft, missile, and spaceship
technology, all embodied in a single powerful bird. But a combination of budget
cuts and the stellar success of NASA's Mercury space program killed the
DynaSoar, putting on the back burner a machine that this country needed
desperately 30 years ago and still needs today.

When the program got under way in 1957, spirits soared at Air Force Systems
Command. Studies promised the ability of DynaSoar not only to orbit above Earth
but also to "dive-glide" as low as 20 miles for bombing runs and then "skip" or
soar off the atmosphere, like a flat stone skipped across water, back into
orbit. As the program began building steam, Dyna-Soar begat DynaSoar 11,
Dyna-Soar 111, and then Dyna-Mows. The latter was a highly advanced Dyna-Soar
Ill to be used as a Manned Orbital Weapon System. As data poured into Systems
Command, everyone wanted in on the project. Astronauts began training, launch
sites were designated, and the Air Force shifted its programming to leap far
ahead of anything the Soviet Union might produce. In fiscal years 1961 through
1963, the program received $273 million for accelerated development.

Then, in 1964, under "pressure from the top," the Department of Defense (DOD)
canceled the whole ball of wax. From a brilliant concept well into development,
Dyna-Soar became as defunct as its predecessor, the dinosaur.

Well, the X-20 died. But it just wouldn't stay dead. No sooner had DOD buried
Dyna-Soar than the Air Force, with NASA cooperation, rushed to develop a huge
aerospaceplane that would lift from the ground in piggyback fashion. The main
booster would be flown back home and the upper winged stage, which anyone with
even myopic vision could see bore uncanny resemblance to Dyna-Soar, would race
into space. Some people even called it a "space shuttle." Prophecy?

But Air Force funds for the project dried up again, so NASA rushed ahead with
its own winged piggyback designs. (That, too, died, eventually to resurface as
the delta-winged shuttle, approved by Nixon in 1972.)

Now it's 1991 and the ghost of Dyna-Soar has been resurrected in multiple forms.
Seems the initial idea was so good that France is developing its Hermes winged
spaceplane, the spitting image of the old X-20A. Japan is hammering out its
HOPE unmanned and manned shuttle, another winged spaceplane. Meanwhile the
Germans are planning their Sanger winged spaceplane project, and the United
Kingdom looks fondly on its own HOTOL program.

Every one of these designs echoes the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, the spaceplane that
refuses to stay dead.

And now, nearly 30 years after DOD dropped the guillotine on Dyna-Soar, NASA
(tied in with the Air Force) is rushing development of the HL-20 personnel
launch system. It will boost above a Titan IV rocket (Dyna-Soar's booster was
the Titan III). It has a length of 30 feet (Dyna-Soar's was 35 feet), a
wingspan of 23.5 feet (Dyna-Soar's was 20.4 feet), and will weigh 22,000 pounds
(Dyna-Soar weighed 11,390 pounds). Oh yes, the HL-20 will be tested with
airdrops from a B-52. The Dyna-Soar test program called for airdrops from the
same plane.

So it seems that we blew several hundred million dollars, dumped more than 30
years down the toilet-and with a new name and a slightly different shape,
Dyna-Soar is very much alive and kicking. A rose by any other name is...