I still think a modified B-70 would have made a great launch platform for a practical space-plane (based on the X-15).

Its a maritime patrol aircraft, for anti-sub, search&rescue, and so on… hardly what any rational person would describe as a “spy plane”!

Ah, fair point CD. I was translating the “research” into a viable weapon!!:)

Which, with the exceptions of V-2s and jet-powered aircraft, is where Nazi Germany failed massively.

And even those successes were limited in production numbers and, especially in the case of the jet engines, suffered from poor materials tech.

Yes, but that was not known to the scientists in the US, who had been working in isolation for some 3 years.

I’ve always had the feeling that had the war dragged on for another year or so, we might have had some nasty surprises. That said, I read the other day that the US high command planned to drop the A-Bomb on Germany too, but the rapid German collapse at the end of 44/early ’45 obviated that, thank God.

The original and primary purpose of the Manhattan Project was to develop atomic (fission) bombs to use against Nazi Germany.

The civilian scientists agreed to work on the project because Germany was known to be trying to develop such weapons, and it was considered sufficient justification and necessity for the Allies to do the same.

There was virtually no mention of using “the Bomb” against Japan until after the German surrender.

When Germany surrendered, Gen. Leslie Groves faced a near-revolt by the scientists when they were told to continue work so that “the Bomb” could be used against Japan.

The scientists felt that, as Japan was “known to not be working on atomic weapons”, that there was no moral justification to use such weapons there.

In the end, threats of imprisonment for treason, and the providing of information to the scientists on the expected casualties – including among Japanese civilians – if an invasion of the Home Islands was necessary convinced the scientists to finish their work, in order to actually reduce overall casualties.

X-15 was a pure rocket… X-43 and X-51 were/are air-breathing scramjets.

If you can’t tell (or don’t know) the difference, then you need to do some research before you make meaningless statements like that.

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Never take anything for granted :rolleyes:

A very pretty pair of illustrations… just one problem here.

Here is what NASA says about that attempt to test a ramjet in the X-15:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/history/Speeches/x-15_speech/x15-6spch.html

The ramjet shown here is a boilerplate-dummy-engine used to obtain performance and stability data prior to installation of a working ramjet. Like the lower ventral fin, the ramjet had to be jettisoned prior to landing.

The ramjet rode well, but with the added structural weight and drag of the ramjet, the maximum speed of this configuration was just over Mach 5, and it was desired to test the ramjet at Mach numbers of 6 to 8. In order to accommodate this increased performance, two external fuel tanks were added (Slide 24).

These droppable tanks carried an additional 13,000 pounds of propellants. They were carried until empty at about 70,000 feet and Mach 2, at which time they were jettisoned, and the bare X-15 had full internal fuel with which to accelerate from that starting point.

One flight was launched in the configuration shown here, and flown to a Mach number of 6.33. The next flight was to exceed the original design speed of Mach 6.6, which meant that the structure had to be heat-protected. A silicone elastomeric was sprayed over the entire exterior of the airplane (Slide 25) This coating was designed to ablate during the high Mach portion of the flight and to carry some of the heat load with it.

The white X-15 was flown one time to a Mach number of 4.94 to check the integrity of the thermal protection and then was flown, in the configuration shown here (Slide 26) to a Mach number of 6.70, the fasted speed achieved in the X-15 program.

Charring of the ablative coating (Slide 27) occurred in many areas of the X-15, but more serious damage occurred where the wake of the dummy ramjet impinged on the vertical fin.

Portions of the skin of the ventral were burned through and there were substantial damage to substructure and to subsystems enclosed in the ventral fin. The X-15A was returned to the North American factory at El Segundo for repair. Before the repair of the damaged structure was complete the X-15 program was canceled. The X-15A never flew again and the actual working ramjet was never flight-tested.

The flight resulting in all the heat damage occurred in October 1967.

Oh of course, being rocket powered (just like the boosters of the x43 and x51), the x15 couldn’t have provided any valuable research into the physics of flight at Mach 6.

But of course you knew that, after all you are an Internet Expert.

Yes, the X-15 did contribute to such knowledge… and among the things they learned were that while the aerodynamics of a rocket with tiny wings and basic control surfaces were suitable for a craft flying in basically a straight course when at mach 4+, that it was easy to lose control at extreme altitude (see below)… and that 1960s material technology was not up to hypersonic speeds (see above).

It still doesn’t make the X-15 very much as a supposed lead-in to the X-43/X-51… as the only new technology those were designed to test was the ramjet/scramjet engine, something the X-15 never even had mounted, much less actually tested.

Again from the NASA article above:

In November of that year X-15 No. 3 launched on what was planned to be a routine research flight to evaluate a boost guidance system and to conduct several other follow-on-experiments. During the boost, the airplane experienced an electrical problem that affected the flight control system and inertial displays. This distracted the pilot and may have caused him to misinterpret other displays. At peak altitude, the X-15 began a yaw to the right, and it re-entered the atmosphere yawed crosswise to the flight path. It went into a spin and eventually broke up at 65,000 feet, killing the pilot.

The tragic event, in retrospect, was the death knell for the entire project. Program management decided not to fly the X-15A again and to fly the X-15 No. 1 only for calendar year 1968.

On October 24, 1968, X-15 No. 1 flew a successful research flight to accomplish the 199th flight of the program. There still remained two months of the year in which to pass the 200-flight milestone. But a series of problems involving the experiment, the inertial reference system, and the weather combined to keep the X-15 on the ground, and time finally ran out on the most successful research airplane in history.

Although I may be mistaken, I believe the X15 was at Mach 6 in the early 1960’s. if so the more recent X51 and X43 are not the baby steps of this technology.

X-15 was a pure rocket… X-43 and X-51 were/are air-breathing scramjets.

If you can’t tell (or don’t know) the difference, then you need to do some research before you make meaningless statements like that.

Really? It would be very sad if so. James (JDK) is a good and knowledgeable source.

He posted earlier this month, so I presume you have some insight that leads you to say he’s ‘Missing’?

Moggy

Don’t take it literally, he’s not missing in the way a Lancaster is over Germany….
My point is , the used to be a regular poster, I haven’t seen a comment from him in months. Your experience may vary.

Checking his profile I found his last posts were 4 Oct 2013, 27 Sept 2013, and 26 Sept 2013. The next newest ones were from 12 February 2012!

So he did not post for over 19 months.