Foreword by Dr. Roger D. Launius, Former NASA Chief Historian 

For the past 75 years, the U.S. government has invested significant time and money into advanced aerospace research, as evidenced by its many experimental X-plane aircraft and rockets. NASA’s X-Planes asks a simple question: What have we gained from it all?

To answer this question, the authors provide a comprehensive overview of the X-plane’s long history, from the 1946 X-1 to the modern X-60. The chapters describe not just the technological evolution of these models, but also the wider story of politics, federal budgets, and inter-agency rivalries surrounding them. The book is organized into two sections, with the first covering the operational X-planes that symbolized the Cold War struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R, and the second section surveying post-Cold War aircraft and spacecraft.

Featuring dozens of original illustrations of X-plane cross-sections,in-flight profiles, close-ups, and more, this book will educate general readers and specialists alike.

X-plane history
NASA aerospace research
NASA aircraft
NASA rockets
X-1 history
X-plane summary
Bell X-1
X-15 rocket plane
US experimental aircraft

• Front Matter
• X-Planes in the Cold War, 1945−1990
  Front Matter
• High-Speed and High-Altitude Flight: The First X-Planes
• Specific Improvements: Technology Demonstrators
• Prelude to the High Frontier: Early Space Vehicles
• X-Planes Since the Cold War, 1990−2021
  Front Matter
• Flight Testing for Combat: Military Vehicles
• Aerodynamics and Engines: NASA’s Research Agenda
• Beyond the Horizon: Access to Space
• Back Matter

Thousand Oaks, USA
Michael H. Gorn

Caserta, Italy
Giuseppe De Chiara

Book Title
X-Planes from the X-1 to the X-60

Book Subtitle
An Illustrated History

Authors
Michael H. Gorn, Giuseppe De Chiara

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86398-2

Hardcover ISBN
978-3-030-86397-5
Published: 21 December 2021

Softcover ISBN
978-3-030-86400-2
Published: 22 December 2022

eBook ISBN
978-3-030-86398-2
Published: 01 January 2022

Series ISSN
2945-7475

Series E-ISSN
2945-7483

Edition Number
1

Number of Pages
XX, 163

Number of Illustrations
3 b/w illustrations, 87 illustrations in colour

Topics
Popular Science in Technology, Aerospace Technology and Astronautics, History of Technology, Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics)