In 1986, just weeks after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, President Ronald Reagan announced plans to develop a successor to the craft. This "new Orient Express", as he called it, would speed from Washington to Tokyo in just two hours, flying at the edge of space. Officially known as the National Aerospace Plane, the craft was to fly at 25 times the speed of sound, moving effortlessly in and out of orbit. It would be free of the bulky external fuel tanks and boosters of its shuttle predecessor. But, like so many concept vehicles advocated over the two decades since the shuttles began flying, it fell victim to formidable technical obstacles. In 1994, the project was cancelled, writing off some US$3 billion of research.
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