In the late 1950s, Boeing engineers used rocket-based technology to design the Dyna-Soar, a manned, reusable space vehicle that would glide through the Earth's upper atmosphere after being lifted into orbit by a rocket. Dyna-Soar reached the mock-up stage before the project was canceled in 1963, before the prototype was built. Many aspects of the delta-winged space vehicle were similar to the space shuttles that orbited the Earth some 30 years later.