Inside the X-15: The Rocket-Powered Aircraft That Reached Space
This educational animation explores the engineering behind the North American X-15, a rocket-powered aircraft designed for high-speed, high-altitude research. The video illustrates how the craft utilized liquid oxygen and ammonia as fuel to achieve extreme velocities. It also highlights the specialized construction of the airframe, which featured Inconel X—a nickel-chromium superalloy—to withstand the intense heat generated by friction with the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. Because traditional aerodynamic surfaces are ineffective in the thin air of the upper atmosphere, the X-15 employed a reaction control system to steer while operating at the edge of space.
This must be that Ancient African technology they tell us about.
The flight you take when she says her parents aren't home...
there is a thin line between an aircraft and strapping some hillbilly on a ICBM with a parachute and yanking him into space. that thing crossed that line 5 seconds ago..... far far away on the horizon
Fastest unmanned artificial object in space is a manhole cover
Neil Armstrong flew it
Mach 25, anyone? Space shuttle, which falls into the same category by these definitions.
Nobody? Really?
Yeah, not an airplane at that point. It's just straight up a rocket with bigger fins and a guy who happens to be along for the ride praying that he'll survive.
The fastest airplane ever flown - as far as we know was the SR-71. The X-15 is no more an airplane than the space shuttle, which if we count that then the shuttle is faster than the X-15
Basically, they strapped a person to a rocket and were kind enough to give him a cockpit! A safe landing and survival were merely optional.