Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: May 24, 2021 at 12:07:46 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Environment]: Castro on Petty, 'Beyond Blue Skies: > The Rocket Plane Programs That Led to the Space Age' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Chris Petty. Beyond Blue Skies: The Rocket Plane Programs That Led > to the Space Age. Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight > Series. Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Illustrations. > 408 pp. $36.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4962-1876-6. > > Reviewed by Kevin Castro (Independent Scholar) > Published on H-Environment (May, 2021) > Commissioned by Daniella McCahey > > Intuition breaks down on the other side of the sound barrier. Playing > with garden hoses as children taught us that the speed of a fluid > will increase as the area it has to flow through decreases (although > perhaps not quite in those terms). However, different rules apply > with air moving at supersonic speeds. Those flows accelerate passing > through pipes with increasing cross-sectional areas (hence the shape > of rocket nozzles). > > Chris Petty's _Beyond Blue Skies: The Rocket Plane Programs That Led > to the Space Age _transports readers to Edwards Air Force Base, > where, from 1946 to 1975, experimental rocket planes carried > engineers' knowledge to higher altitudes and into the supersonic and > hypersonic realms. Petty argues that these aircraft "were flying > laboratories, built and flown in the pursuit of aeronautical > knowledge," whose eventual beneficiary would be the space shuttle (p. > 3). Drawing on oral histories and interviews with participants as > well as technical reports, Petty recounts the histories not only of > particular craft but of the research programs behind them as well. > Developing vehicles that could explore previously inaccessible > domains of space and speed required the coordinated efforts of, among > others, engineers, human computers, and test pilots, whom Petty > portrays less like the fighter jocks of Tom Wolfe's _The Right Stuff > _(1979) and more akin to the technical experts in Matthew Hersch's > 2012 _Inventing the American Astronaut_. The body of the book > consists of a prologue, thirteen chapters divided into three parts, > and an epilogue. > > Part 1 details the histories of the X-1, D-558-II Skyrocket, and > X-2, which were the first airplanes to travel at Mach 1, 2, and 3, > respectively. It begins with a chapter introducing some basic > aerodynamics and the problems aircraft designers encountered as > airplanes got faster over the course of the first half of the > twentieth century. Despite the development of increasingly powerful > piston engines, propeller performance did not improve as expected due > to the effects of transonic flow. Furthermore, the shockwaves induced > by transonic airflows would reverberate inside wind tunnels, > preventing the collection of clean data. To bypass this difficulty, > engineer John Stack advocated building research aircraft to collect > data outside the confines of a wind tunnel while another engineer, > Ezra Kotcher, argued that rocket propulsion would be the fastest > means to push such aircraft to extremes of speed and altitude. Petty > describes the challenges the X-1, D-558-II, and X-2 programs > encountered in realizing their novel designs and the knowledge and > experience built through failures and successes. The X-1 program had > the unenviable distinction of the first emergency use of a pressure > suit, but it also established connections between the government, the > military, and private companies; drew necessary personnel to > California's High Desert; and demonstrated the viability of air > launching. The skyrocket program made use of that last lesson as it > transitioned from a sluggish turbojet-rocket configuration to a > higher-performance all-rocket configuration. The program proceeded to > successfully investigate the performance of swept-wing aircraft at > transonic and supersonic speeds and contributed to solving the issue > of swept-wing planes pitching up without pilot input. Despite the > skyrocket's results threatening to render the X-2 obsolete before its > first powered flight, the X-2 program conducted research into > aerodynamic heating and made use of an early computerized flight > simulator. > > After the transonic and supersonic research described in part 1, part > 2 covers two efforts to research hypersonic, exo-atmospheric flight. > Reports of the aeronautical research conducted in Nazi Germany > spurred interest in hypersonic wind tunnels, and, as the Cold War > threatened to erupt, interest in missile technology motivated further > hypersonic research to address the challenges of atmospheric reentry. > Various engineers proposed new hypersonic aircraft, and the National > Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) (a precursor to the > National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA), air force, and > navy came to an agreement on their respective contributions to the > proposed aircraft in 1954. North American Aviation was selected to > build it. Initial public skepticism over the need for a plane with > exo-atmospheric capabilities evaporated once it seemed to be the > United States' best hope to respond to Sputnik. The X-15 ultimately > performed beyond its design expectations, and an extended research > program kept it flying for another half a decade. However, its > proposed successor--a craft that could be launched into orbit, > reenter the atmosphere at speeds over Mach 20, and use aerodynamic > control to glide down to a horizontal landing called Dyna-Soar--never > flew. At the start of the space age, space planes seemed a logical > technological progression, but capsules were quicker to yield results > and once NASA's programs were up and running there was no clear > justification for a parallel crewed space program. > > The Mercury astronauts went up in capsules and Dyna-Soar was canceled > in 1963, but engineers had conceived of a third way to space: > wingless, lift-generating vehicles, a compromise between capsules and > space planes. Part 3 recounts the careers of several of these lifting > bodies, including the M2-F2, M2-F3, HL-10, X-24A, and X-24B. These > lifting bodies' unconventional shapes presented numerous aerodynamic > and control challenges, repeatedly exhibiting unexpected behaviors > and prompting engineers to reassess how their simulations compared to > real-world data. Petty argues that these test programs thus > demonstrated the continued need for flight research even as > aerodynamics as a field became more computerized. Moreover, this > research into lifting bodies established the possibility of unpowered > landings from orbit, providing invaluable lessons for the space > shuttle, which was spared the costs and complexity of having > air-breathing engines. > > The sound barrier and outer space presented a lot of unknowns. Petty > tells the stories of how some of those questions were answered and > does so with clear and animated prose, although readers less familiar > with aeronautical terms may find the going a little slower than > readers already conversant with those terms. Rocket plane programs > acquired knowledge on aerodynamics, propulsion, materials, and the > management of engineering research programs. Petty provides a > ground-level look at the tensions, compromises, setbacks, and > tragedies these programs entailed and the people who made them work. > Organizations' objectives did not always align, as happened when > military services wanted quick, usable results while the NACA/NASA > wanted all the data it could get. Decisions were not always optimal > but sometimes the simplest that would work, as with the design study > that became the X-15. So although scholars may lament the lack of > notes, any reader interested in the history of aviation and space > programs will enjoy learning how they made it all work. > > Citation: Kevin Castro. Review of Petty, Chris, _Beyond Blue Skies: > The Rocket Plane Programs That Led to the Space Age_. H-Environment, > H-Net Reviews. May, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56303 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#8726): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/8726 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83055039/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
