The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics--forerunner of today's NASA--emerged in 1915, when airplanes were curiosities made of wood and canvas and held together with yards of baling wire. At the time an unusual example of government intrusion (and foresight, given the importance of aviation to national military concerns), the committee oversaw the development of wind tunnels, metal fabrication, propeller design, and powerful new high-speed aircraft during the 1920s and '30s. In this richly illustrated account, acclaimed historian of aviation Roger E. Bilstein combines the story of NACA and NASA to provide a fresh look at the agencies, the problems they faced, and the hard work as well as inventive genius of the men and women who found the solutions.

NACA research during World War II led to critical advances in U.S. fighter and bomber design and, Bilstein explains, contributed to engineering standards for helicopters. After 1945 the agency's test pilots experimented with jet-powered aircraft, testing both human and technical limits in trying to break the so-called "sound barrier." In October 1958, when the launch of the Soviet "Sputnik" signaled the beginning of the space race, NACA formed the nucleus of the new National Aeronautics and Space Agency. The new agency's efforts to meet President Kennedy's challenge--safely landing a man on the Moon and returning him to Earth before the end of the 1960s--is one of the great adventure stories of all time. Bilstein goes on to describe NASA's recent planetary and extraplanetary exploration, as well as its less well-known research into the future of aeronautical design.

In 1965, Eugene M. Emme, historian for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), wrote a brief survey of the agency entitled Historical Sketch of NASA (EP-29). It served its purpose as a succinct overview useful for Federal personnel, new NASA employees, and inquiries from the general public. Because people were so curious about the nascent space program, the text emphasized astronautics. By 1976, a revision was in order, undertaken by Frank W. Anderson, Jr., publications manager of the NASA History Office. With a different title, Orders of Magnitude: A History of NACA and NASA, 1915-1980 (SP-4403), the new version gave more attention to NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), although astronautics was still accorded the lion's share of the text. After a second printing, Anderson prepared a revised version, published in 1980, which carried the NASA story up to the threshold of Space Shuttle launches. Anderson retired from NASA in 1980.

The gigantic Saturn V launch vehicle may well be the first and last of its kind. Subsequent space ventures will be based on new vehicles, such as the smaller, reusable Space Shuttle. Manned launches in the near future will be geared to orbital missions rather than planetary excursions, and unmanned deep-space missions will not demand the very high thrust boosters characteristic of the Apollo program. As the space program moves into the future, it also appears that the funding for elaborate "big booster" missions will not be forthcoming for NASA. The Saturn V class of launch vehicles are the end of the line of the Saturn generation. It is not likely that anything like them will ever be built again. Because of the commanding drama of the awesome Saturn V, it is easy to forget the first Saturns, the Saturn I and Saturn IB. This history is an attempt to give due credit to these pioneering vehicles, to analyze the somewhat awkward origins of the Saturn I as a test bed for static testing only, not as an operational vehicle, and to discuss the uprated Saturn IB as an interim booster for the orbital testing of the first Apollo capsules. This book is a technological history. To many contemporaries the narrative may read too much like a technical manual, but the author's concern is for posterity, when the technical manuals may be lost or dispersed and knowledgeable participants have passed on. The narrative approach was largely predicated on questions that might well be asked by future generations: How were the Saturns made? How did they work?

NASA SP 4206. NASA History Series. Study of the development of the Saturn launch vehicle for the Apollo Moon Missions. Recounts the exploits of the Saturn vehicle's operational life from orbital missions around Earth testing Apollo equipment to the Moon and back. First published in 1980, this superior quality reprint contains photographs and illustrations.

From 1918 to 1929 American aviation progressed through the pioneering era, establishing the pattern of its impact on national security, commerce and industry, communication, travel, geography, and international relations. In America, as well as on a global basis, society experienced a dramatic transformation from a two-dimensional world to a three-dimensional one. By 1929 aviation was poised at the threshold of a new epoch.

Covering both military and civil aviation trends, Roger Bilstein's study highlights these developments, explaining how the pattern of aviation activities in the 1920s is reflected through succeeding decades. At the same time, the author discusses the social, economic, and political ramifications of this robust new technology.

Aviation histories usually pay little attention to aeronautical images as an aspect of popular culture. Thoughtful observers of the 1920s such as Stuart Chase and Heywood Broun considered aircraft to be an encouraging example of the new technology-workmanlike, efficient, and graceful, perhaps representing a new spirit of international good will. "Flight Patterns" is particularly useful for its discussion of both economic and cultural factors, treating them as integrated elements of the evolving air age.

As World War II unfolded in Europe during the late 1930s and early 1940s, U.S. military planners realized the nation's airlift and airborne combat capability was underdeveloped and out of date. The U.S. Army Air Forces relied largely on civil airline equipment and personnel to launch the Air Transport Command's intercontinental routes to overseas combat zones. A separate Troop Carrier Command and newly formed airborne divisions hammered out doctrinal concepts and tactical requirements for paratroop engagements. Despite operational shortcomings, subsequent airborne assaults in North Africa and Italy generated a base of knowledge from which to plan such massive aerial formations and paratroop drops as those for the Normandy invasion and Operation MARKET-GARDEN, and strategic efforts in the China-Burma-India theater. Airlift routes over the Himalayas demonstrated one of the war's most effective uses of air transport. The Air Transport Command emerged as a remarkably successful organization with thousands of aircraft and a global network of communications centers, weather forecasting offices, airfields, and maintenance depots, and air-age realities influenced a postwar generation of dedicated military air transports operating around the world.

The Enterprise of Flight is a highly praised contribution to the literature on American aviation and space exploration history. In a new introduction for this paperback edition, Roger E. Bilstein explains how international competition has affected American aerospace and airline manufacturers and updates the ongoing controversy over the high cost of military aircraft such as the F-12 Raptor.