to have been abandoned. The use of a spaceplane as part of the launching system to replace the Space Shuttle has been suggested in programs such as VentureStar. Some of the details of the SR-3 resemble the rumored Brilliant Buzzard or “Mothership” aircraft, which was alleged to carry reconnaissance aircraft on top, rather than on the bottom as with the SR-3. The second stage of Brilliant Buzzard was considered a hypersonic aircraft, and the lengthening of runways at facilities such as Area 51 (taken by some as evidence of Aurora) could instead be necessary either to support SR-3's takeoff or XOV's landing. In the late 1960s the North American Aircraft Corporation studied conceptual designs using the B-70 bomber for small space launch of an X-15 type rocket plane. These were abandoned as unpromising. What is known, and a matter of public record, is that, through the 1980s and 1990s, the USAF did undertake a series of projects to study, research, develop and test demonstrator vehicles capable of SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit) and TSTO (two-stage-to-orbit) missions. These programs were code-named, in order, Science dawn, Science realm, and Copper canyon, and involved the development of three different competitive demonstrator vehicles. It was at the conclusion of Copper canyon's design phase that President Reagan proposed the X-30 NASP, which is claimed to have been used to pay for development of this spaceplane. According to one declassified Rand Corp. report, two of the three vehicles failed to achieve their full flight envelope (i.e. couldn't make orbit), while the third, an "assisted SSTO", did achieve orbital capability. Furthermore, three code-named programs to design the stealthing of these three vehicles fell under the programs known as Have blinders I, II and III. All of these programs can be found in US military budget documents with associated budget account numbers for years in the 1980s up into the mid-1990s (in the case of Copper coast), though the code name was dropped from the account number in the mid-1990s, even though many millions were budgeted up until recent years. Whether any of these vehicles were individually code named "Blackstar" is unknown at this time. See also Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar British Aerospace HOTOL Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird North American XB-70 Valkyrie Project ISINGLASS Rockwell X-30 National Aerospace Plane Saenger (spacecraft) VentureStar References Bibliography . External links The Space Review: Six blind men in a zoo: Aviation Week’s mythical Blackstar Dwayne A. Day,