AAWSAP DIRD, Space Access: Where We’ve Been and Where We Could Go, March 2010

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 8 March 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports. It surveys the history of space access concepts, covering hypersonic gliders, air-breathing and rocket propulsion, materials, launch options and operating costs. The report argues that reliable, schedulable access to low Earth orbit is mainly a hardware and organizational problem rather than a technology problem.

From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/8/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD is a historical and conceptual survey of space access systems, contending that the main barrier to routine access to space is a failure to build durable, reliable, operational hardware and the supporting infrastructure needed for regular service to and from low Earth orbit. The report reviews earlier launch and aerospace concepts, especially reusable and aircraft-like approaches, and suggests that U.S. space access development became too strongly centered on expendable rockets derived from ballistic missiles rather than bespoke systems designed for repeated space access and payload delivery. Its central claim is that meaningful future progress will depend on creating a purpose-built space transportation infrastructure, including frequent round-trip capability and orbital support networks, rather than continuing to rely on one-off launch vehicles. Overall, the document presents a forceful case for infrastructure-first space development, though its characterization of past technological choices is more assertive than a fully neutral account of past U.S. space programming.

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Conclusion
The AFFDL fabricated a half-scale
mockup of the stage and one-half Model
176 configuration 30 shown in Figure 40.
The strap-on tanks provided propellants
to about mach 6 or 7, after which the
mission continued on internal
propellants. Note the windshields
installed in this 1960s mockup. This was
a two-to-four-person military
experimental vehicle to prove out the
concept. The FOL- 7 was identica I to the
FDL-5 except for the control surfaces.
The FDL-5 had a single central vertical
and fixed horizontal control surfaces with
trailing-edge flaps. The FOL- 7 discarded
the single vertical and used the all-flying
"V" verticals shown in Figures 10 and 12.
The FDL-5 would have encountered stability and control issues had schedules and
resource availability not forced the earlier configuration as the mockup. This was a
vertical-launch, horizontal-landing configuration that had all the elements a full-scale
operational vehicle would have (see Figure 38). In a very short time, however, the
path the United States took to space changed, and most of this work was abandoned
and discarded.
Figure 40. FDL-5 Scale Model of a Stage and One
Half Depicted 29
One of the key elements of the
McDonnell Douglas TAV concept was a
detachable nose section that was itself a
stable hypersonic glider, as shown in
Figure 41. The escape craft did not have L7the performance of the full-scale vehicle,
but it could exceed the glide capability of
the current space shuttle. Like the basic
glider, the escape craft was
automatically separated from the glider
until the crew could establish landing
site coordinates and a glide trajectory.
The escape craft had the same
operational envelope as the operational Figure 41. The FDL-7 and Model 176 Class of
glider, so the crew always had the Hypersonic Gliders. The FDL-7 and Model 176 class of
potential for a safe escape from a hyperson ic gl iders had integral, stable, controllable
hyperson ic-capable escape craft.
damaged or failing operational vehicle.
A common misconception is that a hypersonic glider's turn radius is so large that a
hypersonic turn is of no practical operational use; that is not the case. Figure 42 shows
nominal mach 15 and mach 10 turns initiated at Edwards Air Force base. This chart,
from the NASP press kit release, shows two flight-test paths over North America
initiating a 2g turn. For the 1968 McDonnell Aircraft HyFAC study, 31 the landing turn
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