The big problem I have IIRC with X-20 is the Outer Space Treaty pretty much killed most attempts by the USAF to do much itself w/o NASA cover.
If OST's scrapped or nerfed to irrelevance, than X-20's just the tip of the iceberg. You've got Blue Gemini, MOL, and so on and so forth.
The Outer Space Treaty isn't really important to the X-20 because it didn't come into being until well after the spacecraft was cancelled. Even if it wasn't cancelled, by the time the OST was signed it would be well along in its test phase and moving towards retirement. It's not too hard to imagine that it would be flown out and then retired to the Air Force Museum and the Smithsonian.
In any case, the OST as signed was largely just a codification of reality. Sure, the Soviets partially ignored it (arguably the Almaz stations were "military installations" and hence violations of the treaty), but they quickly found out that there wasn't really anything humans could do that robots couldn't do better.
Probably a footnote, at best. One of the reasons that the USAF never quite managed to put its own men in space, according to Dwayne Day, is that they never managed to justify either X-20 or MOL--the programs were supposed to find out what military utility a man in space would have, and as such couldn't name any specific use.
Well, sure, which is why both ended up cancelled. But MOL wasn't cancelled until after McNamara left, and apparently was something of a pet project for him; it was just too late to actually fly. Which is why I suggested having him get interested in the X-20 to begin with; then you could see blue-suits in space in actuality.
The only somewhat proven use I can imagine is something like the Six Day War--a very quick military campaign, so quick that the US doesn't have time to wait for the spy sats to drop their film canisters and needs a single-orbit recon flight. IIRC, this was one of the reasons for USAF interest in the Shuttle. A Titan or some sort of solid-launched X-20 can be kept on the pad for this for an extended period of time, and so would have some utility in this. But not after around 1975--past that point, the KH-11 satellites could beam information back to the US without film, so the time delay of filling a film canister, dropping it into the Pacific, and processing film ceases to be a factor by 1975.
Not really. The KH-8 and KH-9 systems, both of which were film recovery, were in use until the mid-1980s, and had much better resolution than the KH-11 for some time. So one could imagine a recon X-20 being used to replace or partially replace those systems for very high resolution imagery of small areas and time-sensitive imagery. It's a very niche role, though.
X-20 would probably be used in experiments similar to those the Russians did on early Soyuz flights--space construction and maintenance, welding in vacuum and all that. While Apollo goes to the Moon, the USAF experiments with fixing up spy sats. This information would come in handy during Skylab or *Freedom/ISS. It might even justify a cheaper second-generation Dyna-Soar in the 1970s, if the USAF decides that the ability to repair a sensitive/expensive satellite mission is worth the cost of refurbishment.
It couldn't. I mean, those experiments couldn't be carried out with the X-20. It was basically a flying Mercury, it only had one person on board, although it had a lot more on-orbit delta-V capability than Mercury. There was a small space for other equipment and experiments, but they couldn't have done anything as elaborate as you propose.
the X-20 had four Major problems
1. Boeing work slow on the Program, after 5 year and $5.01 billion (today dollar) was not even working prototype build !
The prototypes had be successor of X-15 program. 1964 B-52 drop test, 1966 Titan II suborbital launches and Titan IIIC orbital test launch in 1968...
2. the original Weapons System 464L proposal, called for a project combining aeronautical research with weapons system development.
What make it impossible for NASA be involved in X-20 program.
3. the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, wrongly conclude that USAF did not have any real objectives for manned orbital flight for X-20
and demand to take the Gemini space capsule, because it already build and would be cheaper as the unbuild X-20.
4. uncertainty what for a booster to be used to launch the craft into orbit
in 1960 were those proposal: Atlas-Centaur, Saturn I, Convair-1047/1010, Phoenix A388, Boeing NAA Supersonic aircraft launcher, Titan-I, Titan-C, Titan-II, Titan IIIC
all of them needed expensive R&D program to build them. like Atlas-Centaur, Convair-1047/1010, Phoenix A388, Titan-C. who used oxygen/Hydrogen Engine a Technological new-land for USA
the Irony: the X-37B take now the Dyna soar mission, only Unmanned and up to 400 days.
note:
Weapons System 464L was a multi role "Hypersonic Glide Rocket Weapon System" for bombing and reconnaissance tasks.
1: But that was the original program schedule, and Boeing was spending in line with pre-program estimates from what I've read. They can't be faulted for being on-time and on-budget!
2: NASA had considerably bigger fish to fry than the X-20 during the 1960s, and I don't know that their involvement in the X-20 would have made any difference. In any event, NASA has been involved in a number of programs which had vaguely military objectives in the future, such as the XV-15 (developed into the V-22), the X-31 (developed thrust vectoring, later used in the F-22 and F-35), or the X-30, so I'm not sure why this would be a problem
per se (I can see that the Air Force side might be worried about security leaks via NASA, but they could run the weapons side of the program somewhat independently of the other).
3: This is true, which is why I specifically addressed this in the OP. I suggested that you could have a POD where McNamara becomes enthralled/interested in the idea and becomes an X-20 champion. Lord knows he pushed a lot of mediocre or dubious programs onto the Pentagon...
4: Atlas-Centaur was already under development for other purposes (launching Advent communications satellites, for one), so this wasn't really an expense that should have been charged to the X-20 program. Similarly for the Saturn I and the Titan IIIC (or, had things been a bit different, the SLS Phoenix A-388). The Titan II, of course, was an ICBM. I agree that the selection of boosters could have been better handled, but many of the boosters you list were developed for other purposes and could relatively easily have been adapted to serve the purposes of the X-20 program.
The best hope for the X-20 is (as the name imply) to have it stuck to its Titan II hence to suborbital flight; and transfer that to NASA in 1961 or 62.
If it moves to the Titan III it is toast against Gemini/ Titan II. By contrast a suborbital X-20 may have a future as an experimental craft. May be it can survive until 1968; not only McNamara leaves, but of course NASA starts the shuttle...
In 1968 NASA had only just started looking at the Shuttle. The program wouldn't really get going until some hazy time between roughly 1970 and 1972, so still a few years in the future. By 1968 I think it's plausible that X-20 will be so far along that there's no point to not flying out the remaining missions (if any),
especially given that NASA is starting to think about Shuttle; it will provide useful hypersonic test data for winged vehicles on reentry. This might influence initial designs of the Shuttle, for instance Boeing's proposals in particular might have scaled-up X-20s for the orbiter (and that might be a point in favor of Boeing to develop the Shuttle; they have experience, obviously, and a proven design), and Max Faget might never propose straight-wing orbiters.
I don't think it's toast against Gemini/Titan II. The two programs have totally different focuses, almost all of the things Gemini could do X-20 couldn't and vice-versa (for instance, no docking, duration, or EVA--which are what almost every Gemini flight focused on!). And, obviously, it's an Air Force native program rather than an import from NASA. Transferring it to NASA as the logical successor to the X-15 might help, but at NASA it would be even more of a red-headed stepchild than at the Air Force, so...
