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"Research aircraft United States History."
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Single Stage to Orbit: Politics, Space Technology, and the Quest for Reusable Rocketry
While the glories and tragedies of the space shuttle make headlines and move the nation, the story of the shuttle forms an inseparable part of a lesser-known but no less important drama-the search for a re-useable single-stage-to-orbit rocket. Here an award-winning student of space science, Andrew J. Butrica, examines the long and tangled history of this ambitious concept, from it first glimmerings in the 1920s, when technicians dismissed it as unfeasible, to its highly expensive heyday in the midst of the Cold War, when conservative-backed government programs struggled to produce an operational flight vehicle. Butrica finds a blending of far-sighted engineering and heavy-handed politics. To the first and oldest idea-that of the reusable rocket-powered single-stage- to-orbit vehicle-planners who belonged to what President Eisenhower referred to as the military-industrial complex added experimental (\" X \"), \"aircraft-like\" capabilities and, eventually, a \"faster, cheaper, smaller\" managerial approach. Single Stage to Orbit traces the interplay of technology, corporate interest, and politics, a combination that well served the conservative space agenda and ultimately triumphed-not in the realization of inexpensive, reliable space transport-but in a vision of space militarization and commercialization that would appear settled United States policy in the early twenty-first century. \"The 'holy grail' of the spaceship movement has been the development of a vehicle that could accomplish single stage to orbit (SSTO) flight. This study describes the evolution of this concept from the 192'0s to the present, revealing a conservative space agenda that has not yet been the subject of historical analysis. As such, it makes an important contribution to space history literature.\"-Roger D. Launius, The Smithsonian Institution.
eBook
Beyond Blue Skies
In 1945 some experts still considered the so-called sound barrier
an impenetrable wall, while winged rocket planes remained largely
relegated to science fiction. But soon a series of unique
rocket-powered research aircraft and the dedicated individuals who
built, maintained, and flew them began to push the boundaries of
flight in aviation's quest to move ever higher, ever faster, toward
the unknown. Beyond Blue Skies examines the thirty-year
period after World War II during which aviation experienced an
unprecedented era of progress that led the United States to the
boundaries of outer space. Between 1946 and 1975, an ancient dry
lakebed in California's High Desert played host to a series of
rocket-powered research aircraft built to investigate the outer
reaches of flight. The western Mojave's Rogers Dry Lake became home
to Edwards Air Force Base, NASA's Flight Research Center, and an
elite cadre of test pilots. Although one of them-Chuck Yeager-would
rank among the most famous names in history, most who flew there
during those years played their parts away from public view. The
risks they routinely accepted were every bit as real as those
facing NASA's astronauts, but no magazine stories or free Corvettes
awaited them-just long days in a close-knit community in the High
Desert. The role of not only the test pilots but the engineers,
aerodynamicists, and support staff in making supersonic flight
possible has been widely overlooked. Beyond Blue Skies
charts the triumphs and tragedies of the rocket-plane era and the
unsung efforts of the men and women who made amazing achievements
possible.
eBook
Revisiting the Battle of Midway
Lanchester-type combat models have been widely used to study the outcome of battles and to carry on counterfactual experiments to analyze the consequence of commanders' decisions, tactics, concentration/dispersion of forces, quality-versus quantity, and so on. This paper uses a stochastic salvo combat model to study the Battle of Midway. The model is calibrated according to the historical outcome. The model is then simulated and used to study four alternative counterfactual scenarios: (i) all of the launched American attack aircraft reach the Japanese carriers, (ii) the Japanese have one additional carrier, (iii) the Japanese do not wait to launch their attack aircraft, and (iv) the American carriers are spotted earlier. Contrary to the common wisdom that the result of the battle was an \"incredible\" American victory, Monte Carlo simulations show that the probability of the Japanese winning was very low and actually close to zero. Even in the most favorable scenario for the Japanese, the Battle of Midway remains an American victory.
Journal Article
The Projects of Skunk Works
The Projects of Skunk Works examines 75 years of Lockheed Martin's advanced development programs, from jet fighters to missiles, heavy-lift helicopters, a lighter-than-air ship, drones, and a stealth boat.
eBook
The X-15 Rocket Plane
With the Soviet Union's launch of the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, the Cold War soared to new heights as Americans feared losing the race into space.The X-15 Rocket Planetells the enthralling yet little-known story of the hypersonic X-15, the winged rocket ship that met this challenge and opened the way into human-controlled spaceflight.
Drawing on interviews with those who were there, Michelle Evans captures the drama and excitement of, yes, rocket science: how to handle the heat generated at speeds up to Mach 7, how to make a rocket propulsion system that could throttle, and how to safely reenter the atmosphere from space and make a precision landing.
This book puts a human face on the feats of science and engineering that went into the X-15 program, many of them critical to the development of the Space Shuttle. And, finally, it introduces us to the largely unsung pilots of the X-15. By the time of theApollo 11moon landing, thirty-one American astronauts had flown into space-eight of them astronaut-pilots of the X-15.The X-15 Rocket Planerestores these pioneers, and the others who made it happen, to their rightful place in the history of spaceflight.
Browse more spaceflight books atupinspace.org.
eBook
Feeding the World
In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of products at falling prices, even as it has released a growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This book, a comprehensive history of world agriculture during this period, explains how these feats were accomplished.
Feeding the Worldsynthesizes two hundred years of agricultural development throughout the world, providing all essential data and extensive references to the literature. It covers, systematically, all the factors that have affected agricultural performance: environment, accumulation of inputs, technical progress, institutional change, commercialization, agricultural policies, and more. The last chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture to modern economic growth. The book is global in its reach and analysis, and represents a grand synthesis of an enormous topic.
eBook