From: utzoo!decvax!cca!David.Smith@CMU-10A@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.space Title: X-20 reentry Article-I.D.: sri-unix.1875 Posted: Thu Jun 24 11:15:11 1982 Received: Mon Jun 28 01:21:33 1982 The X-20 wasn't called Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soaring) for nothing. It was to be fully reusable, and didn't use ablative heat shields. The method of atmospheric entry was to come in at a shallow angle until it got hot, then to aerodynamically pull up, leaving the atmosphere to radiate the heat away. It would skip off the atmosphere many times as it slowed. When it was going slow enough, it would come on in. About ten years ago, I saw a drawing of a proposal North American Aviation had made for a Super-X-15. It was bigger than the existing ones; I don't know what they proposed to do for a heat shield. The drawing showed it being launched on top of an Atlas.