Cold War and Space Race

 Main Points
o 1945 – Nuclear stalemate between U.S. and the Soviet Union.
o Apollo 11, 1969, U.S. won the space race
o 1957 - Sputnik’s launch – 1990 (USR)
 Sputnik 1: First artificial satellite. Launched on the first
Intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7.
 Sputnik 2: Second artificial satellite and first with an animal
inside, Laika.
 Sputnik 3: Didn’t work out space.
o Discoverer 1: First satellite in a polar orbit – U.S.
o Korabl-Sputnik 2: First animals and plants returned alive from space
(Belka & Strelka) → Soviets.
o 1961-1963 Mercury was the first American human spaceflight program.
It has seven astronauts, one in each of seven capsules. It was in
response to the Russian fist man in space.
o Soyuz was a spacecraft for Soviet space program.
o Space shuttle: partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system
operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official
program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a
1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only
item funded for development.

 Swept Wing (Ala en flecha)

o Bob Wood, Chief engineer and cofounder of Bell Aircraft  P1101

o Wood design the XP-59 in 1942, the first American jet.

o In 1948 Bell X-5, jet to recap information on variable sweep wings.
 Jet Age
o In 1918 the fundamentals of high-speed aerodynamics were falling into
place. Main problem: drag penalty from propeller and complex internal
combustion engines.
o 1930: Reaction propulsion systems seemed the only logical candidate.
o 1941: Me 163 Komet, a rocket powered aircraft with a speed of 500
mph. Fastest jet. Max flight time 10min, not an option.
o S
o In 1929 Frank Whittle started to think of a pure turbojet.
o 1945: Lockheed XP-80 Shooting Star first genuinely successful
operational U.S. jet. Turbojet = high altitudes and speeds; Turboprops
(short distance, slower, lower altitudes but more efficient). Common
choice for low and medium range airliners.

 Post-war
o SR-71Blackbird (1966): built almost entirely of titanium.
o Project Hurricane: ground-based aircraft and missile-tracking system.
o Project Cyclone: simulate the flight of a missile.
o Project Typhoon: simulate the track of an antiaircraft missile
intercepting a target.
o Project Whirlwind: simulator capable of predicting the flight
characteristics of an airplane that had yet to be built and of training the
pilots to fly it.
 o 1960s: Autonetics Division of North American Rockwell won the
contract to produce the guidance and navigation system for the
Minuteman II missile.

 F-104 and F-14