Engineers predicted that, by the early 1970s, a fleet of X-20s—traveling at the speed of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but guided by a human pilot—would be ready to intercept and destroy Soviet satellites and conduct rescue missions in space, spy on hostile territory, or deliver atomic bombs to targets deep inside the Soviet Union with little warning and terrifying accuracy. The Air Force spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars—more than $4 billion at twenty-first-century prices—on research and development work intended to overcome the many obstacles to flying such a complex
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