Science: Missile Plane

After months of hesitation, the U.S. Air Force last week signed the orders for development and production of System 464-L, a manned, maneuverable space vehicle called Dyna-Soar. Reason for hesitation: the program will cost an estimated $700 million over the next ten years.

Dyna-Soar is the U.S.’s closest approach to a true spaceship. The X-15 rocket plane will only cruise along the shoreline of space (80 to 90 miles up) at about 4,000 m.p.h. The astronaut in the Project Mercury capsule will have virtually no control over his vehicle, will be able to see little. His chief activity will be to kick himself out of his 100-mile-high orbit with retrorockets, eventually completing his trip by parachute.

The Dyna-Soar, to be built by Boeing, will be long-nosed, stub-winged and something under 40 feet in length. It will probably be hurled into space by the Titan, the intercontinental ballistic missile now under development by Martin. At 18,000 m.p.h., Dyna-Soar will orbit at altitudes up to 300 miles. The man in the cockpit will have enough time and comfort to tend his instruments and carry out a variety of scientific observations.

When the time comes, Dyna-Soar’s pilot will, like the astronaut, fire retrorockets to brake his orbiting speed and start the long fall toward the earth; but where the astronaut can only sit and wait until his chute opens, the Dyna-Soar pilot will be able to use his skill to come back alive. About 100 miles up, his space plane will hit the outer fringes of the atmosphere. The nose and the leading edges of the wings will glow white-hot; the rest of the fuselage will glow bright orange, trailing off to brick-red. When temperatures approach the hazard level of 4,000°, the pilot will nose up a little to slow his plane and give it time to radiate away some of the heat. Then he will nose down again. To bring the Dyna-Soar down in the U.S., the pilot will start his skip-glide descent over Australia. In the last few hundred miles, he can cut in small rockets to give him maneuverability in the lower atmosphere.

The Air Force hopes that Dyna-Soar will be ready by 1968 or 1969.