A short history of rocket planes

I am pleased (and somewhat amazed) to announce my first publication
on space history. Appearing in the January issue of Griffith
Observer (the glossy monthly magazine of Los Angeles' Griffith
Observatory), it ended up being called "To the Stars on Silver
Wings". I think of it as "a cartoon history of rocket planes".
Since the Observer does have limited circulation, I have some
extras which I can mail to sufficiently interested parties.
I actually got paid a bit for it; if I had enough nerve, that
could mean that I am entitled to include in my tax deductions the cost
of those small models of Soviet WWII rocket interceptors ordered from
aviapress.com in Moscow.. The editor managed to find some
excellent old SF illustrations to add to my more straitlaced
pictures. It winds up quoting from Saenger's 1964 speech in which
he accurately summarizes why spaceflight was developing from
ballistics rather than aviation. Ah, beautiful theory can be
brutally slain by the ugliest facts.

Looking back at it, I seem to have been rather more knowledgeable
on this stuff a year ago - a feeling that's becoming all too common.

Bill Keel

I would like a copy please.. email me with specifics

terry dean

"William C. Keel" wrote in message
...
I am pleased (and somewhat amazed) to announce my first publication
on space history. Appearing in the January issue of Griffith
Observer (the glossy monthly magazine of Los Angeles' Griffith
Observatory), it ended up being called "To the Stars on Silver
Wings". I think of it as "a cartoon history of rocket planes".
Since the Observer does have limited circulation, I have some
extras which I can mail to sufficiently interested parties.
I actually got paid a bit for it; if I had enough nerve, that
could mean that I am entitled to include in my tax deductions the cost
of those small models of Soviet WWII rocket interceptors ordered from
aviapress.com in Moscow.. The editor managed to find some
excellent old SF illustrations to add to my more straitlaced
pictures. It winds up quoting from Saenger's 1964 speech in which
he accurately summarizes why spaceflight was developing from
ballistics rather than aviation. Ah, beautiful theory can be
brutally slain by the ugliest facts.

Looking back at it, I seem to have been rather more knowledgeable
on this stuff a year ago - a feeling that's becoming all too common.

Bill Keel

William C. Keel wrote:

pictures. It winds up quoting from Saenger's 1964 speech in which
he accurately summarizes why spaceflight was developing from
ballistics rather than aviation. Ah, beautiful theory can be
brutally slain by the ugliest facts.

Is there a website somewhere with a transcription of this speech?

Mary Pegg wrote:
William C. Keel wrote:

pictures. It winds up quoting from Saenger's 1964 speech in which
he accurately summarizes why spaceflight was developing from
ballistics rather than aviation. Ah, beautiful theory can be
brutally slain by the ugliest facts.

Is there a website somewhere with a transcription of this speech?

I found it in an article by Irene Saenger-Bredt, which
quoted this:

".. fewer problems would need solving by using the ballistic method,
and that the transport of defined payloads would be more economical in the
ballistic mode... as long as the operating frequency remained low.
The high construction costs of such ballistic and non-reusable
transporters were overshadowed first by the still higher
development costs of reusable transporters".

That article is "The Silver Bird Story - a Memoir", in American
Astronautical Society History Series vol. 7 part 1, pages
195-228 (1986, ed. R.C. Hall). Google doesn't turn up any matches
to that snippet. The lecture date was 23 January 1964, 18 days before
Saenger died.

Bill Keel