A prestigious aerospace magazine on Sunday laid out what it called "considerable evidence" that the U.S. military funded the development and testing of a small orbital space plane in the 1990s. In an article posted to its Web site, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that the two-person "Blackstar" space vehicle may have made more than one orbital mission. But it said the project may have since been "quietly mothballed," possibly for budgetary or operational reasons.The report was met with skepticism from other aerospace industry observers, and even Aviation Week conceded that the evidence was inconclusive. In the report, senior editor William B. Scott said that Aviation Week has been investigating "myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit" over the past 16 years."Now facing the possibility that this innovative 'Blackstar' system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we've learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into 'black world' history, known to only a few insiders," Scott wrote.Aviation Week reported that the "highly classified" project involved a large carrier aircraft called the SR-3, modeled on the XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber of the 1960s, as well as a small space plane called the XOV (for "experimental orbital vehicle"). The mothership would carry the XOV under its fuselage, rise to high altitude, then release the space plane at supersonic speeds. After the release, the XOV would fire its rocket engines to rise into orbit, and the mothership would return to base.At the end of its mission, the XOV would return to Earth along a flight profile much like that of the space shuttle.

Aviation Week said the system was designed in the 1980s "for reconnaissance, satellite insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery." The report said the Pentagon could conceivably use the system to conduct surprise reconnaissance of foreign military activities that were hidden from regularly scheduled spy-satellite overflights.Scott wrote that "observed spaceplane landings have been reported" at Hurlburt Air Force Base in Florida, Kadena Air Base in Okinawa and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. To preserve secrecy, the space planes were reportedly transported back to their home base in special C-5 Galaxy transports, and Blackstar's costs may have been charged to other projects such as the National Aero-Space Plane and the Navy's A-12 fighter, the magazine said.

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If that photo is supposed to be the plane you're speakin' of... it looks like a modified scud missle.
C'mon now.. we know the military has cooler looking secret planes out there somewhere... hehe.

That is a photo of an XB-70 Valkyrie bomber. Several prototypes were built, including one which crashed when a chase plane collided with it. The point is that this plane existed and was built. If the USA really needed to build a secret air dropped shuttle in a hurry it makes sense to base the aircraft part of the system not on how cool it looked but on how quickly it could be brought into service.

The XB-70 was capable of reaching Mach 3 and was intended to deliver nuclear weapons to targets within the Soviet Union. In high speed flight the wing tips bend downwards. Actually I think it was one of the coolest looking aircraft ever made.

It never entered service because it was made obsolete by nuclear missiles. Ironically the Russian Mig-25 Foxbat, which was a fighter capable of Mach 3 did enter service. The Foxbat was designed to intercept the Valkyrie

Good Answer

nifty article anyhow, regardless of the pic.