Hypersonic Revolution. Case Studies in the History of Hypersonic Technology. Volume III: The Quest for the Orbital Jet: The National Aero-Space Plane Program (1983-1995)

摘要

see report Groucho Marx once said that 80% of success was just showing up. In a program with such lofty goals as sending ajet aircraft into orbit, one might hope to define success in more demanding terms. Yet in many ways, the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program, which originated in the early 1980s with the intention of designing and fabricating ajet aircraft that could fly fast enough to attain orbital velocity, is considered a success by many of the participants. They contend that by 'showing up,' NASP survived long enough to produce what many deem critical technologies for hypersonic flight (that is, speeds above Mach 5, or roughly 3600 miles per hour), and it reinvigorated an interest in aerospace that was somewhat dormant (and certainly underfiinded) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).