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Lent by Langley Research Center
The Dyna-Soar (Dynamically Soaring Vehicle) was a reaction to both the
Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957 as well as their
antiaircraft missile destruction of an American U-2 spy plane, piloted
by Francis Gary Powers, on May 1, 1960. Intended to be a Cold War space
plane that would be capable of bombing the Soviet Union and shooting
down its satellites, Dyna-Soar would operate at speeds up to 10,800
miles per hour at an altitude of 350,000 feet , or more than twice as
fast as the contemporary X-15. This space fighter-bomber never
materialized beyond the conceptual phase because of the acceptance of
reconnaissance satellite over flights by the United States and the
Soviet Union. But the project paved the way for America's Space Shuttle
of the early 1980s.
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