By Megan Prelinger for Device.com
At the end of this week on July 8, the final mission of NASA’s Space Shuttle program launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The program’s thirty year history is familiar to space-watchers, but less is known of the program’s pre-history. Before there was a Space Shuttle program, there was an initial twenty-five period filled with sci fi-like proto-spacecraft.
It turns out that our familiar Shuttle program is just one of many “space plane” projects that were sketched out over the years, both by the U.S. Air Force and by NASA. In this piece, we’ll take a look the various shapes those space planes took, and the awesome artwork our space ambitions produced, too.
