It is a beginning. Over forty-five years have elapsed since the
X-15 was conceived; 40 since it first flew. And 31 since the
program ended. Although it is usually heralded as the most
productive flight research program ever undertaken, no serious
history has been con-assembled to capture its design, development,
operations, and lessons. This monograph is the first step towards
that history. Not that a great deal has not previously been written
about the X-15, because it has. But most of it has been limited to
specific aspects of the program; pilot's stories, experiments,
lessons-learned, etc. But with the exception of Robert S. Houston's
history published by the Wright Air Development Center in 1958, and
later included in the Air Force History Office's Hypersonic
Revolution, no one has attempted to tell the entire story. And the
WADC history is taken entirely from the Air Force perspective, with
small mention of the other contributors. In 1954 the X-1 series had
just broken Mach 2.5. The aircraft that would become the X-15 was
being designed to attain Mach 6, and to fly at the edges of space.
It would be accomplished without the use of digital computers,
video teleconferencing, the internet, or email. It would, however,
come at a terrible financial cost-over 30 times the original
estimate. The X-15 would ultimately exceed all of its original
performance goals. Instead of Mach 6 and 250,000 feet, the program
would record Mach 6.7 and 354,200 feet. And compared against other
research (and even operational) aircraft of the era, the X-15 was
remarkably safe. Several pilots would get banged up; Jack McKay
seriously so, although he would return from his injuries to fly 22
more X-15 flights.Tragically, Major Michael J. Adams would be
killed on Flight 191, the only fatality of the program.
Unfortunately due to the absence of a subsequent hypersonic
mission, aeronautical applications of X-15 technology have been
few. Given the major advances in materials and computer technology
in the 30 years since the end of the flight research program, it is
unlikely that many of the actual hardware lessons are still
applicable. That being said, the lessons learned from hypersonic
modeling, simulation, and the insight gained by being able to
evaluate actual X-15 flight research against wind tunnel and
predicted results, greatly expanded the confidence of researchers.
This allowed the development of Space Shuttle to proceed much
smoother than would otherwise have been possible. In space,
however, the X-15 contributed to both Apollo and Space Shuttle. It
is interesting to note that when the X-15 was conceived, there were
many that believed its space-oriented aspects should be removed
from the program since human space travel was postulated to be many
decades in the future. Perhaps the major contribution was the final
elimination of a spray-on ablator as a possible thermal protection
system for Space Shuttle. This would likely have happened in any
case as the ceramic tiles and metal shingles were further
developed, but the operational problems encountered with the
(admittedly brief) experience on X-15A-2 hastened the departure of
the ablators.
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