X-20 Dyna Soar: Manned Space Flight in the 1960s?

By Kris Osborn, Warrior

The idea of a possible manned space plane able to travel Mach 20 … in the 1960s, is sufficient to bewilder the brightest developmental minds, yet a mock-up with these ambitions did exist until 1963. The X-20 Dyna Soar never materialized beyond an initial mock-up phase, yet it is remembered for its influence and defining ambition. The intention was to engineer a reusable, piloted, winged spaceplane able to launch from a rocket, glide through space and then “re-enter” at unprecedented speeds. 

The National Museum of the United States Air Force published an image or rendering of the Dyna-Soar as a reusable spacecraft designed as a “delta-wing boost glider that rides into space on a modified Titan booster.”  It was called the Dyna-Soar as an abbreviation for "Dynamic Soaring,” and early conceptual work advanced understanding hot-structures technology, re-entry shapes, on-board guidance and hypersonic design theory, the Air Force write up explains. Subsequent winged-entry designs were all inspired or at least influenced by the Dyna-Soar. 

The X-20 was a concept decades ahead of its time which, many experts maintain, could have actually come to exist as the first hypersonic space vehicle. The idea for this emerged during the earliest days of the Cold War in the 1950s, and its technology would arguably be considered cutting-edge by today’s standards, something which is rather staggering given that it emerged generations ago. 

“After launch, the X-20 would soar along the blurred line between Earth’s atmosphere and the vacuum of space, bouncing along the heavens by using a lifting-body design and hypersonic speeds to skip along the upper reaches of the atmosphere. It would circle the globe, releasing its payload over Soviet targets miles below, before making its way back to American territory to come in for a gliding landing, not entirely unlike the Space Shuttle decades later. The X-20 was a 1950s science fiction fever dream born of the nuclear age and the earliest days of the Cold War… and according to experts at the time, it very likely would have worked,” a write-up in SandBoxx explains. 

The  write up on SandBoxx analyzes an artistic rendering of the space vehicle and offers some technical detail related to plans for its construction. 

“In order to manage the incredible heat of re-entry, the X-20 would use super alloys like the heat resistant Rene 41 in its frame, with molybdenum, graphite and zirconia rods all used for heat shielding on the underside of the craft,” the essay states. 

Perhaps the most phenomenal element of this relates to its “ahead of its time” analysis of thermal management and hypersonic flight; this concept is of course a fundamental focus in ongoing efforts to engineer hypersonic weapons capable of maintaining flight trajectory, guidance and precision at hypersonic speeds. 

1950s Space War

The concept at the time was to engineer a manned space vehicle which could potentially launch global surveillance and strike missions at hypersonic speeds beyond the boundary of the earth’s atmosphere.  The idea of a Mach 20 Dyna-Soar also foreshadows or anticipates the creation of the Space Force, as it envisions the idea of leverage space for potential deterrence or combat operations. For decades, the US regarded space exploration through an ethical lens, regarding the domain as a scientific, timeless and valuable sanctuary for collaborative, multi-national exploration and discovery. Rivals of the US however, did not share this view and instead spent decades weaponizing space and engineering technologies such as anti-satellite weapons and other offensive and defensive spacewar innovations. In response to the fast-growing serious threat presented by rival weaponization of space, the US formed its Space Force and has in recent years been preparing to prevail in a potential space-war environment. The X-37B, for example, is a mysterious yet successful manned space vehicle engineered by NASA for scientific exploration in space and later transitioned into the US Air Force for potential military use.  It seems entirely reasonable to posit that indeed the X-37B was heavily influenced if not specifically inspired by the X-20 Dyna-Soar. 

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University