>>Flashing across California desert skies, the airplanes you see
here are writing new chapters in the story of man made flight....there she goes!
>>This is my first opportunity to greet you as deputy administrator
of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
>>Together, you and I must make our new agency
>>A most unusual place
>>An organization that can challenge conventional wisdom.
>>We can engineer anything we can write the requirements for.
>>We're going to make your idea work.
This particular idea is quite disruptive.
>>A typical flight, of course, starts under the wing of the B-52 mothership.
>>This sleek, high speed machine would have made Rube Goldberg proud.
>>The manner in which we fly reentry from space,
on the space shuttle was pioneered on the X-15.
>>The X-31 pretty much wrote the book on thurst vectoring, along with its sister program, the F-18 HARV.
>>An observation of an occulation is
one of the more challenging missions that SOFIA can do.
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>>Right now, we are looking at the dawn of a new era of aviation.
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>>Hic de ficit orbis...here ends the world.
>>Do satellites have practical uses?
>>You could maintain continuous transmission of telephone calls...
>>A chain of sister satellites will closely link all parts of the globe...
>>Several of them can report continuously on worldwide weather conditions...
>>Here in outer space is a natural vacuum for scientific experiments...
>>It is the mountaintop and the ridgeline of the future...
>>The high ground of military capability now...
>>We will at first timidly penetrate beyond the limits of the atmosphere
and then we'll conquer all the space around the sun.
>>Men have been dropped out of high-flying bombers and rocket aircraft
to probe extremely high altitudes...
>>Moving away from Earth into the borders of space...
>>Beyond the aerodynamically effective atmosphere...
>>At extremely high altitudes, the conventional aerodynamic control
surfaces are not sufficiently responsive for complete flight control.
>>The answer??
>>Reaction jets...
>>What it would be to fly a vehicle that didn't have atmosphere...
Everything that anyone subsequently used for reaction control
systems in space derives from the work they did out here.
>>From the flying laboratories of the X-2 and X-3, there
evolved a new kind of aircraft capable of flying into space...the X-15.
>>The epic mission for which
it was designed: to skim the upper limits of the world's
blanket of air,
>>Higher than man has ever ventured before,
>>and then to handle like a conventional plane in landing.
>>A rocket, airplane, and spacecraft in one.
>>Fundamental data applicable to the problems of manned hypersonic
and space vehicles can be obtained in full-scale flight, providing
basic information in advance of design needs for future space missions.
>>The first thing had to do was get the engine lit.
And then all of a sudden here I was sitting there with my head back
and I couldn't move it.
>>60,000 LBS of thrust in a 30,000 LB airplane.
When you lit that engine, why you could tell you were hauling the mail.
>>Test pilots aren't supposed to say they're afraid, but I was impressed.
>>During the climb, we were controlling the airplane
with the right hand sidestick controller; and as we exited the atmosphere,
we transitioned to a left-hand controller and flew the airplane
with the reaction controls.
>>What is being done to protect man in this heretofore unknown environment?
>>We were looking at what it would do to the pilot,
what it would do to the airplane...all of those things were unknowns.
>>This multi-layered suit is complete with air conditioning,
pressurization, oxygen supply; it gives the comfort and mobility
needed to control an airplane or a spacecraft.
>>Reentry into the Earth's atmosphere poses another set of problems.
>>Air friction will be heat parts of the plane
to a red glow- 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.
>>We coast the remaining 200 miles back to Edwards for a powerless landing
at the dry lake.
>>The X-15 pioneered reentry
from space to an aerodynamically controlled landing.
>>The flight program proved that winged earth exit and reentry
are well within the control capabilities of man.
>>The space program's workhorse, pilots will routinely fly into space,
do research for the Gemini and Apollo programs, and fly back.
>>Over the course of nine years and 199 flights the X-15
laid the groundwork for every space exploration program that has followed.
>>I don't think there's ever been an experimental test program that has come
close to providing as much information to the industry as the X-15
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>>NASA's Parasev explored
the possibility of using flexible wings.
>>A potential recovery system for the Gemini spacecraft,
it didn't work out quite the way we hoped it would.
>>...train ourselves in coming down to a body without atmosphere...
>>A program to develop the piloting techniques
that were used during the final phase of the manned
lunar landing was started at the Flight Research Center in 1964.
To compensate for the gravitational and atmospheric differences between the earth
and the moon, the LLRV was equipped with a gimbaled jet engine
that produced enough thrust to counterbalance 5/6 of its weight,
thereby simulating 1/6 gravity of the moon.
>>It had more degrees of freedom than an octopus.
>>...30 seconds...
>>When Mission Control advised me that I had 30 seconds of fuel remaining,
I thought 'no problem,
it's just like the LLRV.'
>>Scheduled to fly in 1965,
the X-20 was a logical follow on to the X-15.
Under the control of a pilot-astronaut, fully
maneuverable and capable of orbital flight.
>>Though never completed, made significant contributions to the problems
of orbital mechanics, inertial navigation and reentry dynamics
>>Up to the
present, manned spacecraft have been cone-shaped.
They lack maneuverability. But as more and more men leave their world, easier,
more flexible, less costly ways to let them return must be found.
>>If we were to eliminate the top half of the configuration
and have more of a flat top on it as so,
maintaining the expanding forebody on the aft end....then
we would develop lift as shown due to the pressures acting on the bottom
surface of the vehicle.
>>Lifting bodies are wingless vehicles that obtain aerodynamic lift
from the shape of their bodies.
>>Capable both of high-speed reentry and low-speed landing.
The lifting body is reusable.
Its initial cost could be spread over hundreds of flights
>>Speeds approaching
Mach 2 and altitudes greater than 90,000 feet.
The pilot stabilized
and controlled the craft by using its fins and control surfaces.
>>With a lifting body, you could fly back to a chosen
landing site without any mode of thrust, just taking advantage of energy
management.
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>>Information
obtained from flights of the YF-12 will be used to further the development
and operation of the proposed space shuttle.
>>NASA's reusable shuttle orbiter- part of a new, less
expensive space transportation system...
>>With no air-breathing engines,
it will be flown to a powerless landing, like a glider.
>>Dryden Center undertook the first approach and landing tests
of the space shuttle, air launching it from the back of a Boeing 747.
>>Okay we arm...two lights and the orbiters go...
>>Houston is go for sep, have a great flight...
>>...standby...that wasn't too bad...
...ok she's flying good...
>>During that series of flights we were able to gain experience
on the hydraulic and communications and electrical systems;
the handling qualities of the shuttle...And
were able to make some minor adjustments
to flight control system in the landing phase of the program.
>>The tests demonstrated that the shuttle has acceptable landing performance.
Another milestone in the space shuttle development program.
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>>One of our F-15s
was flight testing heat shield tiles for the space shuttle-
We learned a great deal about thermal tiles
and how to attach them for flight in the atmosphere.
>>Never before has a winged vehicle been launched
like a rocket, orbited the earth, returned through frictional heating and landed,
still aerodynamically sound, to be launched again
and again.
>>Dryden has been providing landing support.
We maintain the visual landing aids
activate our control room and provide radar coverage for the landing itself.
We also assist on the convoy operation that is used to safe the orbiter
and help the crew to egress.
This specially modified 747 is towed underneath the shuttle
here in the Mate-Demate Device and the two are bolted together with seven
large bolts for its return to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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>>The JetStar test flies the microwave scanning beam landing
system used by the space shuttle when it returns from orbit
>>Do you wanna look at the tiles, NASA 1?
Or have you seen what you want?
>>This is the heaviest concentration right here.
>>We concur,
we're seeing some damage show up on tile number 2 and 3...
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>>The initial test will involve orbiter landing gears.
In the extreme tests, we actually plan to go enough beyond the design conditions
to cause failure of the brakes and actually blowing the tires
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>>The unique
feature of Pegasus is that rather than starting from sea level
and launching vertically from a launchpad, we use this B-52 mothership
to carry it to high altitude.
>>Today's initial launch of the Pegasus Air
Launch Space Booster marks the first time that a privately developed
space launch vehicle has carried a satellite payload into orbit.
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>>Able to
fly from airport runways-
>>Ramjets, scramjets, and finally rocket propulsion-
>>Directly into Earth's orbit.
>>The rocket engine they are testing on the back of this exotic
Mach 3 spy plane is part of the X-33 experimental
aircraft designers hope will lead to a replacement for the space shuttle.
>>NASA some researchers are looking for alternate means to reach orbit.
One possible solution
currently on the table would use air breathing scramjet technology.
>>This flight was a key milestone and a major step forward in producing boosters
that may send large and vital payloads into space in a reliable, safe
and inexpensive manner.
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>>The development of the Space Station
has also created a need for a second kind of space vehicle, one
that could bring astronauts back to Earth safely in the event of an emergency.
>>The shape provides a large amount of cross range relative to a capsule.
Instead of pulling the trigger and going exactly where it's aimed,
I can pull the trigger on a lifting body, and I have 700 miles to either
side of that initial path that I can maneuver.
>>The X-38 is equipped with a parafoil- a giant steerable parachute-
that allows it to fly to a pinpoint low speed
landing on simple, reliable skids.
>>We can't tell you all the activities that people will do in space,
but we are certain the number of people and activities will increase greatly
as the cost comes down and safety improves.
>>The next great
American led trillion dollar enterprise- the commercial space enterprise.
>>And we think that the technology to support the commercial
exploitation of space is an appropriate task for NASA
in the years ahead.
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>>There it is...standy for final recovey chute...
>>Pad Abort Number One crew module is here for mass properties testing.
>>We were tasked to install the instrumentation,
all the instrumentation sensors and the avionics systems to make this vehicle fly.
>>The abort flight test provides
important data that is used to validate
the safety predictions for the overall Orion
spacecraft.
>>SPC jettison...
>>Pilot deploy...mains are out...
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>>So I'm released...
>>We took our
exact same code that's going to fly SLS
and we put it on the F-18.
And then we had the F-18 fly trajectories
that matched what we would see with SLS.
>>We don't land successfully without this radar that y'all tested.
>>The radar has to hit
just the right altitude and velocity measurements at just the right time
or the rest of the landing sequence won't work.
>>If you're not sure of the atmosphere on Mars,
this will compensate for those type of design errors.
>>And this is an idea to try and fly a small
UAV on Mars, get some reconnaissance photos of potential landing sites.
>>The next step for the fiber optic sensing system is gonna be to design
a ruggedized system that will be able to survive space application.
>>3...2...1...mark!
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>>The Flight
Opportunities program purchases commercial suborbital
reusable launch vehicle services to quickly fly technology payloads.
>>It's a wonderful example of how government and private business
and academia can all work together very well.
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>>We're supporting
NASA's Flight Opportunities by testing different technologies here in the desert
that'll hopefully land on another planet one day.
>>You
can do space tourism, you can do research education missions.
NASA is supporting the commercial spaceflight industry
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