Message posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on May 26, 2006 at 3:52:16 PST:
The Air Force was deeply involved in the space program. In fact the Gemini spacecraft, considered by some of the astronauts that flew it to be the most manuverable and nimble craft of all the series, was suppsed to have a parallel USAF program. The Gemini spacecraft was co-designed by Gus Grissom that taylored it so much to his liking that taller pilots griped at the cramped quarters. USAF was going to have a separte fleet of Geminis flown by USAF pilots launched from Vandnberg that was to used for space recon and other space-based missions. The successful development of the "other" black program; Corona, showed that the satellite-based recon system could be done cheaper and without the difficulty and hazard of manned spaceflight, so the USAF Gemini program was scrapped. There is still USAF astronaut wings (separate from pilot wings) being made and awarded. Finding out how these are being awarded and to whom would be interesting. What happened to DYNA-SOAR was a death due to budegtary constraints and lack of an effective computer control system. Like the first flying wing only a computer-controlled flight system could provide the necessary stability, but nothing like that existed at the time and the craft was uncontrollable outside a narrow envelope.
In Reply to: Re: Another picture; it's an X-20 drawing posted by Scot Tway on May 25, 2006 at 23:39:20 PST:
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