60 Years Ago Today: X-15 First Flight

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first unpowered drop flight of the X-15.  Here's a nice summary at This Day in Aviation.  Since then we have developed a whole gamut of manned spaceflight technologies, been to the Moon, successfully built a small fleet of spaceplanes, and built a series of space stations.  Robotic exploration of the solar system is 100% on track, and next up will be a systematic search for traces of life on Mars.  There now exists a constellation of satellites for communications, weather observation, and research applications.  Space telescopes have literally opened our eyes to previously-unguessed behaviors of the universe.  Moreover, we are currently seeing the dawn of reusable commercial launch systems, for both manned and unmanned flights, as well as – face it, we all want to go – space tourism.

It is easy to say "but we haven't been back to the Moon, and what about Mars?" and be all down in the dumps.  And, true, events have not unfolded in the dramatic ways that the golden age of sci-fi predicted.  But realistically, we're not doing badly with getting out into and staying in space.  It is a hard project, probably harder than anything else humanity has ever done.  Hard to do technically, sure, but even harder to fund and harder yet to keep pushing out toward some poorly-defined yet clearly worthwhile goals.  But we are making progress.

In the meantime, it is good to reflect on the fact that more time stands between us and that first X-15 flight than between then and the Wright brothers' first flight.  Also, at $0.99 for the kindle version or about $8 in paperback, it's a good time to pick up and read Scott Crossfield's autobiographical account of the X-15's development.  For a review of it at this blog last fall, click here.