wind tunnel, the scramjet static-test power-ups at the aeropropulsion facil¬ity. . . .
This was supposedly just a space-research vehicle, for godsake. But it had twelve engines. And whereas the MiG 25, the USSR's fastest fighter-interceptor, topped out well under two thousand miles per hour, this space-age cre¬ation was capable, theoretically, of speeds almost ten times that.
The schedule agreed upon called for the certification of both the prototypes in their lower-speed, turboramjet mode, and then the commencement of hypersonic flight tests in the scramjet mode. That second phase wasn't sup¬posed to begin for three months.
But now the project director had ordered the test pro¬gram accelerated, demanding the hypersonic test flights begin immediately with the one prototype now certified—in ten days.
Maybe, just maybe, it could be done. Of course, every¬body else would be sitting safely in Flight Control there in the East Quadrant when he kicked in the scramjets at sixty thousand feet. His ass would be the one in the cockpit.
This was the riskiest project of his life. Until the opera¬tional shakedown, nobody actually knew whether or not those damned scramjets would produce a standing shock wave in their combustion chamber, creating a supersonic "compressor" the way the supercomputer promised they would.
And what about somebody's brilliant idea of using the plane's liquid hydrogen fuel as coolant for the leading edges, to dissipate the intense heat of hypersonic