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On November 15, 1988, the world learned that the Soviet Union also had their own space shuttle. It had been secretly under development for well over a decade and it had cost the Soviets billions to build it. Several of the spacecraft were in various stages of construction. But the Soviet shuttle, named the Buran, would only ever launch once. Its development had largely been driven by the need to respond to the perceived military potential of the NASA Space Shuttle.

In the late 1960s, French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation made a huge bet. The company designed its first commercial airliner, the Mercure 100, to do one thing fantastically well; fly short routes more efficiently than any other airliner. With ambitions to take on rival giants like Boeing and Douglas, Dassault invested huge sums into developing an airliner with unprecedented short-range performance. Anticipating demand for hundreds of aircraft, the company even built several factories across France.

It was to fly even faster than the Concorde, at speeds approaching Mach 3. And even carry more passengers. It would have flown the distance from Los Angeles to New York in under two hours. America’s effort to build a supersonic airliner was an ambitious project spanning a decade and costing a billion in government funding. But even an army of aerospace engineers and the latest in aviation technology was not enough to get America’s Supersonic Transport (SST) off the ground.

In 1974, a French train sets a speed record, exceeding 250 miles per hour. But this train is unlike any other before it. Instead of rolling on train wheels, it hovers on a cushion of air. In the 1970’s hovertrains were seriously being considered the solution to slow, antiquated railways, which increasingly had to compete with new superhighways and even intercity air travel.

Before Concorde defined what it meant to fly fast, there was another airliner that tried to push the speed of air travel. With outside the box engineering, the Convair 990A cruised faster than any airliner before it. The Convair 990A is still the fastest non-supersonic commercial transport to have ever been produced.

With a wingspan greater than a Boeing 747, The Bristol Brabazon was the largest aircraft ever built by Britain. More a flying oceanliner than plane, it featured sleeping cabins, a dining room, a cocktail bar and lounge, and even a 23 seat movie theater.

The Cold War locked the United States and Soviet Union into a tense struggle for global influence and control. The first purpose-built American spy plane to fly over the Soviet Union was the Lockheed U-2. Neither fast nor stealthy, the U-2’s tactical advantage was that it could supposedly fly above soviet radar and air defenses.

The DC-10’s story begins in the early 1970’s, at a pivotal time when air travel was undergoing a revolution. A new generation of wide-body airliners like the Boeing 747 introduced for 1970’s increased passenger capacity at a time when air travel was becoming more affordable.

In 1964, Japan unveiled the Shinkansen - a new high speed railway connecting the country’s two largest cities (in the 1960's), Tokyo and Osaka. Travelling at speeds in excess of 120 mph (200 km/h), the new specially designed Shinkansen trains had the highest service speeds in the world.

Until the mid 1950’s, small short-range airliners like the twin engined IL-14 were really the only type the Soviet Union produced. And that meant flying across the country’s vast territory required multiple stops for refueling. The exhausting flight could take could take over 24 hours and require multiple stops for refueling. The need for a new Soviet airliner was clearly pressing, especially since the country’s new leader Nikita Khrushchev had a much more open stance with the West and plans for visits around the world.