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  • Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story *
  • Phillip S. Meilinger (bio)
Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story. By R. Dale Reed and Darlene Lister. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1997. Pp. xxvi+230; illustrations, notes/references, appendixes, bibliography, index. $25.

Lifting bodies are an unusual aerodynamic design that do not possess definable wing or elevator surfaces, relying instead on a flattened fuselage shape for lift. They were developed as a way of bringing payloads down from space, which initially relied on blunt capsule shapes having no directional capability. Lifting bodies have a limited glide and turning ability that allows them to land on conventional runways, rather than having to parachute into the sea as was the case with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space capsules. Indeed, the unofficial motto of the lifting body program said it all: “Don’t be rescued from outer space—fly back in style!” Although the story of these unique aerospace vehicles has been told before, Dale Reed, who was the NASA engineer primarily responsible for their development, tells the story with Darlene Lister from a more personal viewpoint. The result is of interest.

Television watchers will remember the Six Million Dollar Man series that began each episode with a video of an aircraft crashing in the desert. That was a lifting body, specifically the M2-F2, which was lost at Edwards AFB, California, in May 1967. Like Steve Austin, the pilot of the M2-F2 survived, and indeed flew again, albeit without the benefit of bionic limbs. Despite this disaster, the lifting body program continued and became a great success.

Reed argues that it was human interaction and decisions that originated and shaped this program. To be sure, this view of technological development is just one of several possible interpretations. There is a rich body of literature, for example, that argues that technology is shaped by bureaucracies, not individual people. Another school of thought maintains that technology progresses at its own pace, virtually unaffected by human action. Yet Reed makes a strong case for his thesis. In the early 1960s the NASA community in which he worked was still small and surprisingly informal. Managers and engineers had the latitude to explore unusual ideas and take risks, so it was often possible to circumvent the bureaucratic process and launch new projects from the bottom up. In this environment Reed first [End Page 921] explored the possibilities inherent in lifting bodies. Initially working in his spare time, he designed the first balsa wood model, sold the idea to his superiors, assembled a crew of volunteer engineers and test pilots, built a full-scale vehicle, and initiated a test program in 1963. This program was a success, and officials from the air force and NASA headquarters soon jumped on the bandwagon. Despite the crash of the M2-F2, several more models were built and flown with excellent results.

In the early 1970s two circumstances occurred, however, that pushed the program temporarily out of the limelight. First, the air force specified that the space shuttle then being conceptualized had to have a large cargo bay, approximately the size of a railroad boxcar. At that time, lifting body technology was not at the point where such a large vehicle was possible. Second, lightweight ceramic tiles were invented. These tiles allowed for rapid cooling of leading edge surfaces, thus permitting a vehicle with conventional wings to survive reentry into the atmosphere. The combination of these two events meant that the shuttle would assume a design more akin to a large airplane than to a lifting body. Nonetheless, technology advanced, and the inherent efficiency and utility of the lifting body design is such that it has reemerged as the concept for the shuttle follow-on, Lockheed Martin’s “VentureStar.”

Reed’s account focuses too heavily on aspects of the lifting body program that he himself was involved with; as the project grew in size and complexity, his role decreased, and thus his story becomes more of a narrative overview. In addition, the jargon and engineering technical detail at times becomes a burden; a technical or aviation background almost becomes essential to follow the account. Even so, his desire...

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