from: Collector's Guide Publishing Inc
Regular marked price: $32.95Discount Price: $22.90
Cost Savings: $10.05 (31%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 623.749
EAN num: 9781896522951
ISBN number: 1896522955
Label: Collector's Guide Publishing Inc
Manufacturer: Collector's Guide Publishing Inc
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: July 01, 2003
Publishing house: Collector's Guide Publishing Inc
Sale Popularity Level: 507087
Studio: Collector's Guide Publishing Inc
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Originally proposed in 1934 by an Austrian engineer by the name of Eugen Sänger, it had the potential to be the ultimate super-weapon. Sänger's design soon found its way into the hands of the Nazi regime in Germany where it was refined at the Goring Institute.
In 1952 Walter Dornberger, a one-time German army general who had run the rocket program at the infamous Peenemünde facility, sent an unsolicited proposal to the Air Force on behalf of the Bell Aircraft Company. Dornberger saw that Sänger's idea was still valid and that current technology was catching up with the concept.
In 1954 the United States Air Force and the Bell Aircraft Company arranged a contract for the study of an advanced, bomber-reconnaissance weapon system.
By June 1959 the whole idea had been dropped in the lap of the Boeing company who had spent millions on research in their bid to win the coveted contract. The new vehicle was to be called Dyna-Soar, a catchy abbreviation which stood for Dynamic Soarer. This new vehicle would be able to be dispatched to anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours and would provide the long-range radar systems of the time only a three minute warning of its impending arrival.
It was a Space Shuttle with a mission - to drop a weapon payload anywhere on Earth and to do so while approaching its target at hypersonic velocity - 18,000 miles per hour.
Between 1957 and 1963 the Dyna-Soar program consumed $430 million of the US taxpayer's money. However, it never flew.
Cancelled less than two weeks after President Kennedy's assassination, the Dyna-Soar (or X-20) was consigned to oblivion by the stroke of a pen.
Today, much of the research and technology acquired during the Dyna-Soar program is still valid. Some of it went into the Space Shuttle and some is still being used as background for the USAF Falcon program and NASA’s Orbital Space Plane (OSP).
The story of Dyna-Soar is one of the great 'what-ifs' of American aerospace history. If it had been seen to completion it might have seen service as a weapon, a shuttle, a life-boat for the space station, a tourist vehicle, or in its proposed advanced versions even a conveyance for regular trips to a moon base.
For the very first time this book compiles many of the critical government documents that tell the story of America's extraordinary lost spacecraft.
Over 100 B&W pictures, 16 pages of colour pictures and over 200 drawings and charts.
Bonus DVD-Video Includes Extremely rare footage of the Dyna-Soar program, including pressure suit tests, simulator tests with Wally Schirra, Gus Grissom, Neil Armstrong and others, film of the lost prototype, USAF documentaries and more!
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
THE ORIGINAL DYNA-SOAR,WHICH I WORKED ON IN THE 1950'S, WAS NOT A MANNED VEHICLE. IT WAS NOT A FOLLOW ON TO THE X-15. IT WAS A CLASSIFIED, UN-MANNED WEAPON DELIVERY SYSTEM. BOEING DESERVES ALL THE CREDIT FOR DEVLOPING THIS VEHICLE!
NASA CAME ALONG AND BASTERDIZED THE SYSTEM TO PUT A MAN IN IT AND CLAIMED THEY INVENTED EVERYTHING. THIS BOOK WAS ESSNTIALY ADVERTIZING FOR NASA.
Rated by buyers 
-
The Boeing X-20 program or DynaSoar started out as a follow on to the X-15 program from North American Aviation. It was to go higher, faster and farther than the X-15. Many of its pilots were from the X-15 project. But as the space age came along hard and fast with astronauts in orbital flights missions, the X-20 mission went from a sub orbiting glider to orbital 3 day spacecraft. One pilot to a three man vehicle. For awhile the Dynasoar tried to cope until The secretary of Defence pulled the plug in 1963. No manned space vehicles flew with wings for almost 18 years.
Robert Godwin has produced a beautiful and before now unseen look at how this project evolved. Many of his illistrations have never been seen before now. This book examines the many different concepts, designs and boosters over its nearly 15 year lifespan. The DVD alone is worth the price of the book.
An outstanding book at a great price.
Rated by buyers 
-
This is the most comprehensive book I've ever seen on the X-20 Dyno-Soar. It has very detailed descriptions of the research and development that was done to make this space plane a reality. It contains very interesting charts & artists conceptions of what the vehicle would have looked like. There are many photographs of mockups, test articles, and the actual me who would have flown the Dyno-Sour. The included CD contains vintage footage of the development, as well as the United States Air Force documentary about the X-20 program. I found this book a invaluable resource in my life long studies of the history of manned space flight. It really makes you wonder what could have been.
Rated by buyers -
If you had asked someone from the aerospace industry in the mid ninteen-fifties how they thought that manned spaceflight would evolve, it's likely that they would have described something like the X-20 Dyna-Soar program. It was the logical subsequent step beyond the X-planes of the 1946 - 1968 period, extending their performance out to orbital speeds and altitudes as part of an incremental military development program. Under other circumstances, it might have happened just like that.
Instead, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957, and turned spaceflight into one of the principal `fronts' of the Cold War. Under these conditions, there wasn't time for the measured development that the X-20 program would have called for - Instead, a ballistic approach using existing missiles was used, to get things done quickly. Also, President Eisenhower decided that the primary thrust of the American manned space program would be civilian, through the agency of NASA.
The X-20 program wasn't immediately cancelled, as a parallel military space program continued, which the X-20 would have been the flagship of. Ongoing questions about exactly what the program was intended to accomplish eventually undermined the program with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who finally cancelled Dyna-Soar in favour of the Air Force "Blue Gemini" and "Manned Orbiting Laboratory" projects, which were themselves cancelled a few years later.
Until now, the X-20 program has been pretty obscure, without a lot of published information available. This volume addresses that need. Like many of the releases from Apogee books, this isn't specifically a history of the program - rather, it is a collection of rare documents relating the program, along with a DVD of rare film on the program. If you already know some history of the X-20 program, and want to know more, then this is for you -- like a trip to the archives!
This book is a natural for me - I'm both a space enthusiast, and an aviation buff with an interest in the X-planes of the 1946 - 1968 period. So it gets me on both fronts.
Rated by buyers -
The X-20 program is little known and there is very little information about it in print or on the internet. Dyna-Soar would have been a triumph of technology in it's day, instead, Robert McNamara, the same guy who led us to defeat in Vietnam, cancelled the program. All was not lost, the technology developed from Dyna-Soar was used for the Space Shuttle.
This book is a treasure chest of raw information. In addition to reports about the "nuts and bolts" of the program, it also includes a DVD with rare Air Force footage. I recomend this book to anyone interested in the early space age.
Find other books like this one:
