The program areas included in this report are early work on the Wave Superheater and related research on Chemical Nonequilibrium in High-temperature Gas Flows, a Radiation Probe, Sound Propagation in an Excited of Dissociated Gas, Boundary Layer Phenomena in High-Temperature Gas Flows, and Molecular Interaction at High Temperatures.

Progress in Astronautics and Rocketry, Volume 7: Hypersonic Flow Research compiles papers presented at a conference on hypersonics held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in August 1961. This book discusses the low Reynolds number effects, chemical kinetics effects, inviscid flow calculations, and experimental techniques relating to the problems in acquiring an understanding of hypersonic flow. The structure and composition of hypersonic wakes with attendant complex chemical kinetic effects is only briefly mentioned. This text consists of five parts. Parts A to C comprise of theoretical papers on the problems of calculating flow fields at hypersonic speeds. The experimental techniques that are of immediate practical interest in view of the difficulty of flight testing are discussed in Parts D and E. This publication is beneficial to engineers involved in advanced design problems.

This study was undertaken in response to a request by the U.S. Air Force that the National Research Council (NRC) examine whether the technologies that underlie the concept of a hypersonic, air-launched, air-breathing, hydrocarbon-fueled missile with speeds up to Mach 81 can be demonstrated in time to be initially operational by 2015. To conduct the study, the NRC appointed the Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Air Force Hypersonic Technology Program, under the auspices of the Air Force Science and Technology Board.

An essential new account of some of the most valuable research and development in international military history. Roy F. Houchin II shows how the roots of US Air Force hypersonic research and development are grounded in Army Air Force General Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold's identification of the need for advanced airpower weapon systems to meet the anticipated postwar enemy threat. The technology for a smooth transition to military spaceflight seemed within reach when Bell Aircraft Corporation executive Walter Dornberger (the former commander of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket research) made an unsolicited proposal to William E. Lamar (the chief of Wright Aeronautical Development Center's New Development Office of the Bomber Aircraft Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH) for a hypersonic boost-glide weapon system. Visionaries like Arnold, Dornberger, and Lamar believed a hypersonic boost-glider would represent the ultimate expression of the US Air Force's doctrine by performing strategic bombardment and reconnaissance more successfully any other type of vehicle. As this aspiration reached maturity in Dyna-Soar, the service's leadership never gave up their beliefs. This book shows how the struggle to persuade the secretary of defence and his advisors, who did not share the Air Force's vision for a military spaceplane, illustrates the ebb and flow of an advanced technology program and its powerful legacy within American society.

The program areas included in this report are early work on the Wave Superheater and related research on Chemical Nonequilibrium in High-temperature Gas Flows, a Radiation Probe, Sound Propagation in an Excited of Dissociated Gas, Boundary Layer Phenomena in High-Temperature Gas Flows, and Molecular Interaction at High Temperatures.