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Old 03-23-2020, 04:23 PM
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Earl Earl is offline
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Default NASA e-Books

Here’s a link to some of the e-Books offered for free download by NASA.

Probably a fair number of esoteric titles that may not be too very well suited for general lay-person reading, but many others may be of interest. Do a search on the NASA site for their general page on e-Books which gives even more titles. I downloaded a couple in the history series for reading.

These may provide some different reading during some of the extra down time folks may have during the current national challenges.

Oh, and one little history note I did pick up in one of the titles I downloaded a few days ago, titled “Coming Home: Reentry and Recovery From Space”. If someone had asked me who was the first person to travel into space twice, I would have responded that it was Gus Grissom. But, I would have been wrong. In the aforementioned e-book, a discussion around the X-15 mentioned that in August, 1963, Joe Walker made his second flight above 62 miles in the X-15. I knew that some of the X-15 pilots had won their astronaut wings by flying the craft above 62 miles, but I did not realize any of them had made multiple trips into space. Not orbital obviously, but still, trips into space. Just thought it was an interesting, and possibly overlooked, piece of space trivia.

Here’s the link: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/index.html


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Old 03-23-2020, 08:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
I knew that some of the X-15 pilots had won their astronaut wings by flying the craft above 62 miles, but I did not realize any of them had made multiple trips into space. Not orbital obviously, but still, trips into space.

13 Pilots, 199 missions. That's the one fact that bothers me more than anything about the X-15 program. They stopped after 199 flights. They really needed to make it an even 200 for the cool factor and for my selective OCD.
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Old 03-23-2020, 09:27 PM
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My readings and research on the X-15 program are not nearly as extensive as on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, but I do know the X-15 program, like many, went way over budget; something like $300 million actual cost, compared to an initial program estimate of $42 million.

But, yes to stop at 199 flights probably was a bit of a pill to swallow for those who had worked on the program. I did find this however that a 200th flight was actually attempted, but had to be canceled due to weather:

===============

“On December 20, 1968, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration canceled the X-15 Hypersonic Research Program after 199 flights. A 200th X-15 flight had been scheduled, but after several delays, the decision was made to end the program. (The last actual flight attempt was 12 December 1968, but snow at several of the dry lakes used as emergency landing areas resulted in the flight being canceled.)

================


So, it is of some psychological comfort that they did actually try for a final 200th mission, but Mother Nature interceded and put an end to the attempt. At that point though, with Apollo, Vietnam, and LBJ’s Great Society plans soaking up federal dollars left and right, the dollars to try to push on from there may have simply not been there.

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