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Book Cover
E-book
Author Evans, Michelle, 1955- author.

Title The X-15 rocket plane : flying the first wings into space / Michelle Evans ; foreword by Joe H. Engle
Published Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2013]
©2013

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xxv, 450 pages)
Series Outward odyssey : a people's history of spaceflight
Contents Introduction -- The whole nine yards -- A record high -- Gaining speed -- Naval engagement -- Changing course -- Straight and steady -- Skipping out -- On a roll -- Inconel meets celluloid -- Fastest man alive -- Chasing experiments -- In the line of duty -- Snow at Edwards -- Afterword
Summary 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. This book tells 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, the author captures the drama and excitement of 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 the Apollo 11 moon landing, thirty-one American astronauts had flown into space - eight of them astronaut-pilots of the X-15. This book restores these pioneers, and the others who made it happen, to their rightful place in the history of spaceflight
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [431]-434) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject X-15 (Rocket aircraft)
Research aircraft -- United States
Aerodynamics, Hypersonic -- Research -- United States -- History
TRANSPORTATION -- Aviation -- General.
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Aeronautics & Astronautics.
HISTORY -- United States -- 20th Century.
Aerodynamics, Hypersonic -- Research
Research aircraft
X-15 (Rocket aircraft)
United States
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2012047260
ISBN 0803246846
9780803246843
1299405851
9781299405851
1496211685
9781496211682