In Aviation Week & Space Technology 50 years ago, we reported on how McDonnell Douglas engineers were  looking into possible space shuttle designs for a booster system that would be a water recoverable, liquid-fuel vehicle powered by high-pressure chamber engines. 

Reporter Zack Strickland wrote: "They think the booster will be a single-stage rocket that will take the orbiter to an altitude of almost 200,000 ft. before the spacecraft's own engines can be ignited."

Explore this piece and delve into how the single-stage booster, which would be fired without the orbiter's aid, had "won favour" with NASA but McDonnell Douglas Corp. would be studying various concepts.

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