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Sto caricando le informazioni... Always Another Dawn (edizione 1960)di A. Scott Crossfield, Clay Blair
Informazioni sull'operaAlways another dawn di Albert Scott Crossfield
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. As a child, Scott Crossfield secretly learned to fly. Told he would never be physically strong enough to fly, due to serious bouts of pneumonia and rheumatic fever, he found he could not let go of the dream of flight and ultimately earned for himself a place as a renowned and dedicated test pilot for the X-1 and Skyrocket rocket planes. Told with candor, this is the story of a man dedicated to flight, the man who was the first to fly at twice the speed of sound. It is also the story of the X-15, the rocket plane that flew its brave and daring pilots into journeys into the unknown. Told in Scott Crossfield’s own words, this account of a life of flight reveals a pilot who had faith in the future of man in space, a pilot who believed that the experimental plane had a place in that quest. In these pages, readers will meet the legendary pilot who flew a miracle and set man on his path toward the stars. Highly recommended. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Always Another Dawn: The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot is the detailed account of NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and Albert Scott Crossfield's work in the post-war years and beyond pioneering the use of rocket-powered planes. Crossfield and his team paved the path for space exploration making this, his autobiography, essential reading for historians and aviation buffs. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)629.13Technology Engineering and allied operations Other Branches Aviation Aviation engineeringClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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To put this book into context, it wraps up in early 1960. That's about a year before Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, and consequently a year before the Mercury program starts its first piloted flights. Dwight Eisenhower is still president. North American thinks the B-70 won't be cancelled. NASA has only been NASA for just about two years. (And the author, Scott Crossfield, is still ~65 years away from killing himself by failing to flying out of a thunderstorm.)
So it's still really early in the space business. In some ways things are both prescient and also naive. Aerodynamic space vehicles are being explored, even though they ultimately won't be used to travel to space until the STS program kicks off in 1977, and then will be virtually abandoned again after the program ends in 2011. Lots of aerospace firms are alive and kicking with buckets of defense or NASA funding before merging or shutting down in the 80s and 90s after the cold war ends and the federal government decides not to give NASA money for cool projects anymore. There is a little discussion about the nascent (at the time) conflict between piloted flight and autonomous missiles.
In that context, the book is pretty fascinating. Where did one of the top test pilots and engineers see the future of aviation and space research? It also highlights years that are often not covered that much in many other books about space, who usually just gloss over the 1950s to get right to the Mercury program.
That said, the book was REALLY LONG and started out REALLY SLOW. I felt like it took 100 pages for me to feel good and interested. I've been zipping through books lately, and this one took me quite a while to get through. So it's not amazing, but it was solidly good.
If you've read The Right Stuff and you kind of want to know more, especially about the aviators who didn't become astronauts, this book is for you.
One more note. This book was written in 1960. This means that every pilot, engineer, and human worth writing about (according to this book) is a man. (Except for the exceptional single "lady engineer.") The author uses exclusively male pronouns. The author annoyingly says "space man" instead of astronaut. I found it to be grating, jarring, and obnoxious. I know the book is a product of its time, but I wish people could have been a little less awfully sexist a little earlier in our history. ( )