I kinda like it, but the artist's impression makes it look like a sad piggy - just draw some nostrils on that nosecone and see what I mean:
It does sorta look like a sad pig-nosed cyclops. But NASA didn't design/build it. Not sure if the crewed version will ever see space. wiki eta: crewed version shelved in 2014.
Interestingly enough, that's based on the Boeing X-20. That was designed by Alex Tremulis, who had previously designed (used it as a basis for the X-20) the Tremulis Zero Fighter. Tremulis, however, is perhaps best known for his automotive work.
It looks just like a Soviet proof of concept "mini shuttle" they tested in the 1980s. Several years before Buran by the way.
Well, you know how well those lifting bodies work out... "I can't hold it! She's breaking up! She's breaking--" But how else will we usher in a new era of bionic men?
Except that the crash footage in the opening of The Six Million Dollar Man is not of an experimental lifting body, but of the crash of an X-15. And despite the violence of the crash the pilot was not badly injured though he did lose an eye due to a post operative infection.
According to the dialogue in the series. But the actual footage is of the X-15 crash. Okay, I was wrong. The dialogue spoken by actor Lee Majors during the opening credits is based upon communication prior to the M2-F2 crash that occurred on May 10, 1967: ("Flight com, I can't hold her! She's breaking up! She's break—"). Test pilot Bruce Peterson's lifting body aircraft hit the ground at approximately 250 mph (402 km/h) and tumbled six times.[11] But Peterson survived what appeared to be a fatal accident, though he later lost an eye due to infection.[n 2] In the episode "The Deadly Replay", Oscar Goldman refers to the lifting body aircraft in which Austin crashed as the HL-10, stating "We've rebuilt the HL-10." In the 1987 TV film The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Austin refers to the craft as the "M3-F5", which was the name used for the aircraft that crashed in the original Cyborg novel.)
I loved his work on the Cord 810. It looked entirely different from anything else on the road at the time. Plus that was the first use of front wheel drive on a mass market car.
