Secrets of Space Flight

Spaceship on cover is a realistic model of the future, made by the rocket expert G. Harry Stine and photographed on White Sands desert

"Secrets of Space Flight"
Fawcett How-To Book, Number 298
by Lloyd Mallan
published by Fawcett Publications, 1956
144 pages

Contents

1. Ships That Probe the Unknown
2. Space Medicine Forges Ahead
3. Men, Mammals and Gravity
4. Escape Capsules and Rocket Sleds
5. Developement of the Space Suit
6. Spaceship in the Basement
7. Launch Into the Statosphere
8. Searching Through Space
9. School for Future Space Pilots
10. Checkout in a Rocket Ship
11. Research Rocket Takeoff
12. Engines of Tomorrow
13. Giant Step Into Space
14. From the Mouse to the Moon to Mars
15. Men who Make Spaceflight Possible
16. Flying Saucers Brought Up To Date

Profusely illustrated with photos and diagrams (b/w), topics cover rocket developement, test pilots, space medicine and current developments relating to space flight. Some movie stills from "This Island Earth."

Original price $.75

X-1 and Crew

X-1Jack Russell/Chuck Yeager & addtl ground crew, originally uploaded by imjmr.

X-1, Jack Russell, Chuck Yeager & the ground crew stand underneather the mothership loaded and ready to go with the experimental X-1 rocket plane aka Glamorous Glennis.

Jack Russell was also Chuck Yeager's Crew Chief - pictured front and center.

Jack was a technical advisor for the movie "The Right Stuff." He even had a cameo role as the janitor who sawed the broom handle needed to close the hatch after Yeager broke his ribs.

May 19, 1960 - the X-15

May 19, 1960 - X-15 (No. 1) flown to 107,000 feet, its highest altitude to date, by Maj. Robert M. White (USAF), at Edwards AFB.

May 17, 1950 - XS-1 Rocketplane

May 17, 1950 - The XS-1 (an upgraded version of the X-1), with NACA test pilot John H Griffith at the stick, reaches Mach 1.13 at 12810 miles. It's the 35 flight of the rocket plane.

Skyrocket Drop from Mothership

X-2, originally uploaded by amphalon.

The swept-winged rocket-powered Douglas Skyrocket (incorrectly identified as the Bell X-2) drops from its mothership on it's way to another record-breaking flight.

X-15 Powered Flight

September 17, 1959 -
The first powered flight of the X-15, piloted by Scott Crossfield.

Maiden Flight of the X-15

June 8, 1959 - The X-15's maiden flight.

A technician straps test pilot Scott Crossfield into the cockpit of the missile-shaped X-15 rocket plane before flight. Crossfield is carried aloft in his sleek, black rocket plane beneath the wing of a B-52 from NASA's Flight Research Center. It's the beginning of flight research probing the hypersonic speed realm and altitudes at the edge of space.

Image Credit: NASA/North American Aviation

White Sands

Backbone of the American postwar rocket and upper atmosphere research effort was the wartime German V-2 rocket, of which 100 were shipped to the United States after the war and 68 were fired in varied experimental shots.

From the book "Worlds in Space"
by Martin Caidin,
1954

The Douglas Skyrocket

The Navy Skyrocket high-speed research plane

The Skyrocket just moments after being dropped by a B-29 mothership

The Douglas D558-2 Skyrocket

• Role: Experimental high-speed research aircraft
• Manufacturer: Douglas Aircraft Company
• First flight: 4 February 1948
• Primary user: U.S. Navy
• Number built: 3
• Developed from: D-558-1 Skystreak (straightwing)

General Characteristics

• Crew: one pilot
• Length: 42 ft 0 in (12.8 m)
• Wingspan: 25 ft 0 in (7.6 m)
• Height: 22 ft 8 in (3.8 m)
• Wing area: 175 ft² (16.2 m²)
• Empty weight: 9,421 lb (4,273 kg)
• Max takeoff weight: 15,266 lb (6,923 kg)
• Powerplant:
  • 1× Westinghouse J34-WE-40 turbojet, 3,000 lbf (13 kN)
  • 1× Reaction Motors XLR-8-RM-5 rocket engine, 6,000 lbf (27 kN)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 720 mph, 1,250 mph when air-launched (1,160 km/h, 2,010 km/h when air-launched)
• Stall speed: 160.1 mph (257.7 km/h)
• Service ceiling: 16,500 ft (5,030 m)
• Rate of climb: 22,400 ft/min, 11,100 ft/min under rocket power only (6,830 m/min., 3,380 m/min under rocket power only)
• Wing loading: 87.2 lb/ft² (426 kg/m²)
• Thrust/weight (jet): 0.39

The Sound Barrier Awaits

The date is June 18, 1947. The place is Muroc AFB. B29 and two XS-1 rocket planes. The one at center is lowered down a ramp to be mated to the mothership's belly.

USAF Saucer

The AVRO-Car, a ducted-fan driven saucer.

Originally produced by AVRO in Canada, the USAF contracted AVRO to continue development the hovercraft project. Whether this was a truly experimental project, or a mere ruse to fool the Russians is up to debate.

An Unconventional Time

Undated photo of the jet-powered Northrop NS-97.

The post-war era. Dr. Von Braun. Missiles. The Space Race. Rocket technology. Willy Ley. Little green men. Cold War. Ex-German Science know-how. Colliers. Rocky Jones. White Sands. Flying Discs. It was an uncertain, unconventional time which called for equally unconventional means to gain the upperhand with the ulimate prize being the sole controlled access to space.


1/11 Update:
Look at IFO Picture Library Quoting from the source, "Dick Stasinos designed this saucer, in 1950. He was an engineering graduate of the Northrop Aeronautical Institute. Stasinos’s disc had a revolving outer shell and held eight turbo-jet ports. The center of the disc stayed stationary, along with the cockpit for the pilot. Two main jets provided the push and the eight jets provided the spin."

The X-15 Rollout

The first X-15 (56-6670) rocket powered research aircraft is rolled out in 1958. At this time, the XLR-99 rocket engine is not ready, so to make the low-speed flights (below Mach 3), the X-15 team will fit a pair of XLR-11 engines into the modified rear fuselage. These were basically the same engines used in the X-1 aircraft.

The X-15 is a product of the accumulated knowledge of manned rocket craft, the first true spacecraft, with hope to make our first flight to the edge of space.