Beyond Blue Skies

Chris Petty is a space and aviation enthusiast and author of The High Frontier blog. His articles have appeared on Adam Savage’s Tested site and the Space Review. Dennis R. Jenkins is the project director for the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. He worked as a contractor to NASA for thirty-three years in a variety of engineering and management roles.

• List of IllustrationsForewordAcknowledgmentsIntroductionAbbreviations and DefinitionsPart 1. Breaking Barriers1. A New Breed of Aircraft2. Like a Speeding Bullet3. A New Pretender4. The Race to Mach 25. Facing the Heat6. The End of the BeginningPart 2. America's First Spaceship7. The Hypersonic Challenge8. Higher and Faster9. The Follow-On10. Failure to LaunchPart 3. The Lifting Bodies11. Look Ma, No Wings!12. The Heavyweights13. Racehorses and Unrealized PlansEpilogueSourcesIndex

"Chris Petty's Beyond Blue Skies: The Rocket Plane Programs That Led to the Space Age transports readers to Edwards Air Force Base, where, from 1946 to 1975, experimental rocket planes carried engineers' knowledge to higher altitudes and into the supersonic and hypersonic realms. . . . Any reader interested in the history of aviation and space programs will enjoy learning how they made it all work."-Kevin Castro, H-Environment “Chris Petty has written a book that covers much of the unheralded research into high-speed flight that helped set the stage for human spaceflight. I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the early history of rocket flight.”-Al Worden, command module pilot for Apollo 15 “Beyond Blue Skies captures the period, the place, and best of all the people who made the rocket-plane era at Edwards so successful, providing a solid basis for the space shuttle. Chris Petty has captured our soul.”-Robert W. Kempel, retired experimental flight research engineer “Beyond Blue Skies is a deeply researched and thoughtful history of the X-planes that flew across the skies of California’s High Desert between 1946 and the 1970s. While rich in detail, it is approachable by the general reader and will prove to be as engaging as the exploits of the daring pilots who continually ‘pushed the envelope.’ Chris Petty’s new book capably fills a gap in the available literature, and for that reason along with its enjoyability, it deserves a place on your shelf.”-Rod Pyle, author, journalist, and editor in chief of Ad Astra magazine for the National Space Society “Chris Petty takes us on an exciting journey further than the usual treatments on this subject. He provides unique, personal accounts and rare insights from the engineers and technicians who built, modified, maintained, and controlled the most advanced research aircraft and their milestone flights. These stories are an essential addition to chronicling the remarkable achievements of the pioneering test pilots.”-Col. Mark Pestana, NASA research pilot