Blows against the Empire |
Back in the 1960s, the X-15 rocket plane flew 199 times. Several of those trips were to space and back. Inspired by this success, most of the major players in Britain, Europe and America proposed even more capable vehicles. The X-15 program ended in 1968 (The same year the Arthur C. Clarke-Stanley Kubrick film 2001 — A Space Odyssey was released.) The X-15 was then the only fully reusable vehicle to reach space.
Today, 35 years later, it still is.
David Ashford aims to change that. His British company, Bristol Spaceplanes, Ltd., plans to proceed incrementally, starting with a suborbital spaceplane, roughly equal in performance to the X-15, and over 15 years build up to a fully mature and reusable orbiter.
Here he makes the case that the job is technically possible and economically feasible.
| SPACEFLIGHT REVOLUTION |
| David Ashford London: Imperial College Press, 2002 |
| ISBN 1-86094-325-X |
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