The Goodyear Meteor Junior was a 1954 concept for a fully

reusable spacecraft A reusable spacecraft is a class of spacecraft that have been designed with repeated launch, orbit, deorbit and atmospheric reentry in mind. This contrasts with conventional spacecraft which are designed to be expended (thrown away, allowed to bur ...

and

launch system A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...

Goodyear Aerospace Goodyear Aerospace Corporation (GAC) was the aerospace and defense subsidiary of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company was originally operated as a division within Goodyear as the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, part of a joint project ...

, a subsidiary of the American

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tire manufacturing company founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling and based in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, motorcycles, S ...

. Darrell Romick originally estimated that the craft would cost about the same as an intercontinental

B-52 bomber The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air ...

Concept

The concept was introduced in 1954, before the dawn of

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

, to be displayed at the annual conference of the

American Rocket Society The American Rocket Society (ARS) began its existence on , under the name of the American Interplanetary Society. It was founded by science fiction writers G. Edward Pendray, David Lasser, Laurence Manning, Nathan Schachner, and others. Pendray ...

. The design called for a winged spacecraft piloted by a crew of three. The craft was to contain three stages, of which only the uppermost, containing the crew, would ultimately be propelled to

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

around Earth. Each of these three stages was to contain landing gear and a crew of its own, allowing the stages to be piloted to a landing to be reused in a future launch. For reentry and landing, the nose of each stage had a mechanism that would allow the nose to close into a point. The craft would have been long, and would weigh 500 tons. The craft itself would have been impractically massive for the time period; however, the design ignited public interest in that it was an early concept for a reusable vehicle to transport crew and cargo to space and back, and was the subject of an article in the December 1957 issue of ''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

'' magazine. The original concept envisioned the craft launching from the

White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established as the White Sands Proving Ground on 9July 1945. White Sands National P ...

. At a

downrange Downrange, or down range, is the horizontal distance traveled by a spacecraft, or the spacecraft's horizontal distance from the launch site. More often, it is used as an adverb or adjective specifying the direction of that travel being measure ...

distance of and an altitude of , the first stage would separate from the craft. At downrange, the second stage would separate at an altitude of . After launch was completed, the third stage/crew compartment would orbit the Earth at an altitude of at a velocity of , where it would stay for approximately two months before returning to Earth.

References

{{Reusable launch systems 1954 in spaceflight Cancelled spacecraft Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Spaceplanes Reusable launch systems