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9780801873386 Add to Cart Academic Inspection Copy

Single Stage to Orbit:

Politics, Space Technology, and the Quest for Reusable Rocketry
  • ISBN-13: 9780801873386
  • Publisher: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
    Imprint: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
  • By Andrew J. Butrica
  • Price: AUD $115.00
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
  • Local release date: 14/01/2004
  • Format: Hardback 288 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Science: general issues [PD]
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Behind the glories and tragedies that make headlines and move the nation, the story of the space shuttle is inextricably bound to the lesser-known but no less engrossing drama of the search for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket. In this book, Andrew J. Butrica tells this story, going back to the first glimmerings of the idea in the 1920s, when it was dismissed as technically unfeasible, and following it to its fruition in the midst of the Cold War as a very real government program and operational flight vehicle This is not, however, the story of a single idea, but rather the history of a vision that brought together a few pioneers of space technology and several concepts, new and old. To the first and oldest idea -- that of the reusable rocket-powered single-stage-to-orbit vehicle -- were added the concepts of ''aircraft-like'' operations, of using an ''X,'' or experimental, vehicle, and of running a program with a ''faster, cheaper, smaller'' managerial approach. Butrica describes how these ideas came together in the heart of what President Eisenhower dubbed the military-industrial complex. He traces the interplay of technology and politics that served the conservative space agenda and that ultimately triumphed in a realization of the vision of space commercialization and militarization resting on a foundation of inexpensive, reliable space transport.

AcknowledgmentsChronologyIntroductionPart I: The Conservative Agenda for Space1. The Reagan Revolution2. Commerce on the High Frontier3. Space WarriorsPart II: The Quest4. X-30: The Cold War SSTO5. Space VisionariesPart III: The Space Ship Experimental6. Launching the SSX7. The SDIO SSTO ProgramPart IV: Spaceship Wars8. W(h)ither SSTO?9. The Disorder of Things10. The Clipper GrahamConclusionAppendixNotesBibliographic EssayIndex

""A history of one particular aspect of US space history'the attempt to develop a single-stage-to-orbit launcher... it is a story of muddle and waste... Butrica provides a competent and readable account of this debacle, which concentrates on the small research vehicle, DC-X.""

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