He based his designs on the aerodynamic work of Harvey Allen from the mid-1950s, and was instrumental in selecting the blunt-body shape that won the Mercury competition over numerous contenders.

His design, which he named "DC-3" in homage to the famed Douglas DC-3 airliner, was a small two-stage fully reusable shuttle with a payload capacity around 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg).

However, the DC-3's nose-high re-entry profile was controversial, and eventually doomed it when the U.S. Air Force joined the Shuttle program and demanded cross-range performance that the DC-3 could not meet.

[7] In 1962 Faget became the Director of Engineering and Development at the Manned Spacecraft Center[3] and continued to work for NASA until his retirement in 1981, shortly after the second Space Shuttle flight (STS-2).

[8] Faget was inducted into the 1969 National Inventors Hall of Fame, and received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal and John J. Montgomery Award.