Silbervogel (German for "silver bird") was a design for a liquid-propellant rocket-powered sub-orbital bomber produced by Eugen Sänger and Irene Bredt in the late 1930s for The Third Reich.

It was one of a number of designs considered for the Amerikabomber project, which started in the spring of 1942, being focused solely on trans-Atlantic-range piston-engined strategic bombers such as the Messerschmitt Me 264 and the Junkers Ju 390, the only two airframe types which were actually built and flown for the competition.

When Walter Dornberger attempted to create interest in military spaceplanes in the United States after World War II he chose the more diplomatic term antipodal bomber.

It would then gradually descend into the stratosphere, where the increasing air density would generate lift against the flat underside of the aircraft, eventually causing it to "bounce" and gain altitude again, where this pattern would be repeated.

Because of aerodynamic drag, each bounce would be shallower than the preceding one, but it was still calculated that the Silbervogel would be able to cross the Atlantic, deliver a 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) bomb to the continental United States, and then continue its flight to a landing site somewhere in the Empire of Japan–held Pacific, a total journey of 19,000 to 24,000 km (12,000 to 15,000 mi).

Joseph Stalin had become intrigued by reports of the Silbervogel design and sent his son Vasily and scientist Grigori Tokaty to kidnap Sänger and Bredt and bring them to the USSR.

[citation needed] On 18 October 1985 Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) began renewed studies of the Sänger spaceplane, now a "piggyback" two-stage-to-orbit horizontal takeoff concept.