
The legacy of the North American X-15 - high_frontier
https://thehighfrontier.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/the-final-steps-and-legacy-the-north-american-x-15-part-3/
======
100k
If you're interested in the dead end of space planes, Tom Wolfe's "The Right
Stuff" covers how the program lost out to the Mercury system.

------
douche
There is just so much wasted potential in the early 70s. It's really the death
of optimism in human progress.

~~~
RachelF
Not the death of optimism, just the winning of the NASA bureaucracy in keeping
the organization size by pushing the "cheaper" space shuttle.

With the benefit of hindsight, flying into space with the X-15's successors
would have happened if there was not a need to beat the Soviets quickly with
rockets.

Also throwing away the Saturn rockets after around 20 launches was just silly.

~~~
mordant
Correct on all counts. Turning those remaining Saturn Vs into lawn ornaments
was criminal.

------
ambicapter
The X-20 looks like the Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne (and SpaceShipTwo).

~~~
mordant
You got that precisely backwards, heh.

During the X-Prize launches, I observed that what Burt Rutan had done was to
build himself an X-15, and then build himself a B-52 to launch it.

