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Apogee Books Space Series #35
Dyna-Soar: Hypersonic Strategic Weapons System
One of the great "what-ifs" of American aerospace history, the Dyna-Soar program described in this text was cancelled less than two weeks after President Kennedy's assassination.
- GenresSpace
448 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2003
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March 3, 2018
The X-20 Dyna-Soar is as much a legend as it ever was a real thing. It was to be the world’s first manned and piloted space plane, with an initial orbital flight and glide back to earth planned for 1965. A space shuttle-like vehicle way before its time. It was real — it had design and engineering specs, test flight plans, full-size mockups, and an initial group of six pilots. But it literally never got off the ground. In fact it was never even really built. This book tells the history of the Dyna-Soar project from 1955 to its cancellation in 1963, with obituaries running through 1965.
The book is a collection of documents, rather than a continuous narrative. The story is told through NACA, NASA, Air Force, Department of Defense, and other documents of the time. Many are memoranda on technical subjects, design documents, mission definitions, test flight plans, and the like, although some are also short summaries of the history and potential of the project.
This was the “space age”. And it was the cold war. Popular dreams of space travel ran right alongside plans for exploiting space for political and strategic warfare advantages. The concept of a rocket glider had originated with Eugen Sanger, one of Germany’s rocket scientists of the 1930s. And the Dyna-Soar project itself was born in a military context in the US. Still its evolution in the era of US/Soviet competition, displayed that dual personality — the dreams of space and the dreams of strategic advantage. Beautiful, starry-eyed visions of space exploration and civilian commercial hypersonic flight sit side by side with discussions of how the rocket plane would complement conventional bombers and ICBMs in the American military arsenal. In reality, though, this was the Air Force’s space program, not the civilian space program, and its justification would ultimately be its military usefulness.
The book’s documents are complemented by color and black and white photographs and drawings of Dyna-Soar models, engineering and design diagrams, charts, and tables. A DVD comes with the book and contains documentary and other footage of flight simulations, mock-ups, and some of the pilots, like Neil Armstrong, who became famous in the “other” US space program.
The Dyna-Soar was canceled in late 1963. And Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s announcement that the Dyna-Soar project was being canceled is included in the book. Looking back, we can imagine that the Dyna-Soar might have accelerated our progress toward re-usable, piloted spacecraft, but the Dyna-Soar lived and died by its military potential. This was a defense project, notwithstanding NASA’s interest and contributions. McNamara summed up his decision rationale by citing all the things that the Dyna-Soar couldn’t do. It couldn’t carry large payloads, it couldn’t support astronauts for long stays in orbit, and it wasn’t designed to shuttle astronauts between earth and other orbital craft. McNamara and the Defense Department saw the future for military uses of space in a “Manned Orbital Laboratory,” and he didn’t see the Dyna-Soar contributing enough to that objective. Instead, they would look to collaboration with NASA’s Gemini program to support their objectives. As for Dyna-Soar, he said, “ . . . it had a limited objective. It was very expensive."
NASA itself of course was focused on getting men to the moon, and they were committed to “ballistic” capsule flight, not space planes.
McNamara’s decision had its detractors. Walter Dornberger, who had been a leader of the German rocket science program and became a leading figure in the American program after the war, wrote in 1965, “If we had invested only a small part of the energies and funds expended on ballistic booster development into the space plane as a space transporter, we would not be heading today down one of the most expensive dead-end roads, as some experts have put it, and would be much better prepared for the future."
I’ve wanted to learn more about the Dyna-Soar project ever since reading Tom Wolfe’s mention of it in The Right Stuff and Walter McDougall’s discussion of it in his history of the space race, The Heavens and the Earth. I grew up during the space race, fascinated by the X-15 and then by the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo flights. I hadn’t known about the X-20. It now looks, in retrospect, like a great opportunity lost, although that’s too easy a perspective to take. As the documents here show, not all the problems were solved — the X-15 flew to the edge of space, but orbital flight and re-entry were a different story. Many of those problems remained unsolved for many years, as NASA pursued a different approach with mostly un-piloted, disposable space capsules rather than piloted, re-usable, space planes.
This book scratched my itch. It’s not something you’re likely to want to read cover to cover. It’s more a matter of browsing, reading, and browsing some more. It has to be the best source available for its subject, and I found the contemporary feel of the documents a big advantage for authenticity, and even a little bit of nostalgia. I used a 1960 baseball card as a bookmark, just for the heck of it.
The book is a collection of documents, rather than a continuous narrative. The story is told through NACA, NASA, Air Force, Department of Defense, and other documents of the time. Many are memoranda on technical subjects, design documents, mission definitions, test flight plans, and the like, although some are also short summaries of the history and potential of the project.
This was the “space age”. And it was the cold war. Popular dreams of space travel ran right alongside plans for exploiting space for political and strategic warfare advantages. The concept of a rocket glider had originated with Eugen Sanger, one of Germany’s rocket scientists of the 1930s. And the Dyna-Soar project itself was born in a military context in the US. Still its evolution in the era of US/Soviet competition, displayed that dual personality — the dreams of space and the dreams of strategic advantage. Beautiful, starry-eyed visions of space exploration and civilian commercial hypersonic flight sit side by side with discussions of how the rocket plane would complement conventional bombers and ICBMs in the American military arsenal. In reality, though, this was the Air Force’s space program, not the civilian space program, and its justification would ultimately be its military usefulness.
The book’s documents are complemented by color and black and white photographs and drawings of Dyna-Soar models, engineering and design diagrams, charts, and tables. A DVD comes with the book and contains documentary and other footage of flight simulations, mock-ups, and some of the pilots, like Neil Armstrong, who became famous in the “other” US space program.
The Dyna-Soar was canceled in late 1963. And Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s announcement that the Dyna-Soar project was being canceled is included in the book. Looking back, we can imagine that the Dyna-Soar might have accelerated our progress toward re-usable, piloted spacecraft, but the Dyna-Soar lived and died by its military potential. This was a defense project, notwithstanding NASA’s interest and contributions. McNamara summed up his decision rationale by citing all the things that the Dyna-Soar couldn’t do. It couldn’t carry large payloads, it couldn’t support astronauts for long stays in orbit, and it wasn’t designed to shuttle astronauts between earth and other orbital craft. McNamara and the Defense Department saw the future for military uses of space in a “Manned Orbital Laboratory,” and he didn’t see the Dyna-Soar contributing enough to that objective. Instead, they would look to collaboration with NASA’s Gemini program to support their objectives. As for Dyna-Soar, he said, “ . . . it had a limited objective. It was very expensive."
NASA itself of course was focused on getting men to the moon, and they were committed to “ballistic” capsule flight, not space planes.
McNamara’s decision had its detractors. Walter Dornberger, who had been a leader of the German rocket science program and became a leading figure in the American program after the war, wrote in 1965, “If we had invested only a small part of the energies and funds expended on ballistic booster development into the space plane as a space transporter, we would not be heading today down one of the most expensive dead-end roads, as some experts have put it, and would be much better prepared for the future."
I’ve wanted to learn more about the Dyna-Soar project ever since reading Tom Wolfe’s mention of it in The Right Stuff and Walter McDougall’s discussion of it in his history of the space race, The Heavens and the Earth. I grew up during the space race, fascinated by the X-15 and then by the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo flights. I hadn’t known about the X-20. It now looks, in retrospect, like a great opportunity lost, although that’s too easy a perspective to take. As the documents here show, not all the problems were solved — the X-15 flew to the edge of space, but orbital flight and re-entry were a different story. Many of those problems remained unsolved for many years, as NASA pursued a different approach with mostly un-piloted, disposable space capsules rather than piloted, re-usable, space planes.
This book scratched my itch. It’s not something you’re likely to want to read cover to cover. It’s more a matter of browsing, reading, and browsing some more. It has to be the best source available for its subject, and I found the contemporary feel of the documents a big advantage for authenticity, and even a little bit of nostalgia. I used a 1960 baseball card as a bookmark, just for the heck of it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review