pAn essential new account of some of the most valuable research and development in international military history.ppRoy F. Houchin II shows how the roots of US Air Force hypersonic research and development are grounded in Army Air Force General Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold's identification of the need for advanced airpower weapon systems to meet the anticipated postwar enemy threat. The technology for a smooth transition to military spaceflight seemed within reach when Bell Aircraft Corporation executive Walter Dornberger the former commander of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket research made an unsolicited proposal to William E. Lamar the chief of Wright Aeronautical Development Center's New Development Office of the Bomber Aircraft Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH for a hypersonic boost-glide weapon system. pVisionaries like Arnold, Dornberger, and Lamar believed a hypersonic boost-glider would represent the ultimate expression of the US Air Force's doctrine by performing strategic bombardment