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In the Air In Space People of Speed Speed in Our Culture
The United States is a nation of speed. Speed shrinks distances and alters our perception of time.
We have shaped our lives and our world by embracing technologies that shatter time and distance. With ships and railroads, then cars, aircraft, and spacecraft, we overcame constraints of the natural world to reach across continents and into space, while also connecting with others around the globe.
Yes! While you might get a speeding ticket for driving too fast, even a slow tricycle has a speed. Speed is a measure of how far you move over a given time—like miles per hour (mph) or kilometers per hour (km/h).
A Grumman F-14A Tomcat emerging from a vapor cone as it breaks the sound barrier on February 14, 1987.
Why do we always try to reach faster speeds?
The thrill of speed begins as an elemental human response. The heart races. The blood rises. And then the mind sprints ahead to imagine ever-faster speeds and technologies needed to reach them. Competition in the marketplace, battlefield, and sporting arena spurred the pursuit of speed, both nationally and globally. This is not uniquely American, but there is no doubt that we are of a nation of speed.
While most people may have never owned their own aircraft or spacecraft, they likely have spent a fair amount of time in a car. In particular, Americans have many stories to share about personal travel and speed on the road. After World War II, owning a car or motorcycle was a major source of pride and identity in the United States. For many manufacturers, their initial entrée or continuing success in the American market was facilitated by the popularity and performance of fast vehicles.
Cars, aircraft, and spacecraft all have one thing in common: speed.
Connecting Our World
The large size of the United States has motivated Americans to find faster ways to travel its vast distances. They’ve been driven by financial aims and also by larger ambitions that inspire people to invent time- and distance-shattering technologies to travel the country, the globe, and beyond. We’ve used speed to connect our world across the water and on roads and highways, but perhaps one of the most innovative ways we have leveraged speed is by flying the air and soaring through space.
In the Air
One area where people experience the impact speed has on our lives is through commercial aviation and passenger flight. But speed in the air can also be experienced through a multitude of other ways, such as air racing and military aircraft.
Daredevil sportspeople have raced their frail contraptions since the early flight era around 1909. After World War I, air racing transformed from an individual to an organized sport. American and European military teams competed for international prestige and the advancement of technology. During the Great Depression, enthusiasts took easily available technologies and built air racers, seeking fame and fortune. Since World War II, the sport has evolved to be ultra-competitive, dominated by purpose-built air racers and heavily modified fighter aircraft.
The country’s vast geographic expanse motivated the push for increased speed and distance. New technologies boosted airplanes to fly higher, faster, and farther.
Fifty years after the Concorde first flew, a new era of innovation and entrepreneurial ideas seeks to make supersonic flight practical and sustainable. Flying passengers at twice the speed of sound, the Concorde captured the imagination of millions, but was retired in 2003 — so what's next for supersonic flight? In this video, explore the past and future of supersonic flight.
In 1976, the Blackbird broke the world’s record for sustained altitude in horizontal flight at 25,929 meters (85,069 feet). That same day another SR-71 set an absolute speed record of 3,529.6 kilometers per hour (2,193.2 miles per hour), approximately Mach 3.3.
Explore More Stories About Speed in the Air
Famous film producer and entrepreneur, Howard Hughes, set his sights on building the world's fastest land plane. The result was the sleek Hughes H-1 Racer, which broke the world speed record in 1935, and later the US transcontinental speed record in 1937.
Howard Hughes and the World’s Fastest Land Plane
Famous film producer and entrepreneur, Howard Hughes, set his sights on building the world's fastest land plane. The result was the sleek Hughes H-1 Racer, which broke the world speed record in 1935, and later the US transcontinental speed record in 1937.
The P-51 Mustang was originally designed for the Royal Air Force. However, it became a long-range escort fighter for the U.S. armed forces against Nazi Germany. The production process was efficient and quick; about 14,000 were built during WWII. It was a powerful and fast aircraft with extensive range. The P-51 Mustang was stiff competition for the Luftwaffe.
The Powerful and Fast P-51 Mustang
The P-51 Mustang was originally designed for the Royal Air Force. However, it became a long-range escort fighter for the U.S. armed forces against Nazi Germany. The production process was efficient and quick; about 14,000 were built during WWII. It was a powerful and fast aircraft with extensive range. The P-51 Mustang was stiff competition for the Luftwaffe.
On October 14, 1947, in the Bell X-1, Capt. Charles Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than sound. Now, we can all get as close to the Bell X-1 as Yeager himself with a 3D model of the exterior of the aircraft.
In 1929, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) authorized the construction of a massive wind tunnel to be located at the NACA Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton. But why a wind tunnel of this huge size?
In 1954, the Sonic Wind No. 1 rocket sled let loose 40,000 pounds of thrust and propelled United States Air Force flight surgeon Col. John Stapp more than 3,000 feet in a few seconds. What happened next?
Landing a plane is difficult under normal circumstances. Imagine landing a super fast plane on a moving runway. Oh, and the runway is also very short! That's what it's like to land on an aircraft carrier.
In Space
In the mid-to-late 20th century, advances in rocket engine technology sent astronauts to live and work in space and to explore the Moon. These engines also propelled unmanned spacecraft through the solar system and beyond, at speeds and distances previously left to the imagination.
The beginning of the Space Race was marked by the Soviet Union’s (1922-2001) landmark firsts: the first satellite, the first man and woman and space, and the first spacewalk. So what happened? Why did the Soviet Union suddenly seem to fall behind in the race to the Moon?
When the Space Race began, there was no rocket powerful enough to send a person to the Moon and back. The Americans and the Soviets raced to develop a super-booster, or Moon rocket by scaling up existing smaller rockets into gigantic multi-stage, ultra-fast, launch vehicles.
The manned Apollo missions were each launched aboard a Saturn V launch vehicle. (The “V” comes from the five F-1 engines that powered the first stage of the rocket.) Almost five decades later, the Saturn V remains the United States’ largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built. (Yes, even more than Space-X’s Falcon Heavy!)
Launched in 2006 to study Pluto, the New Horizons probe became the fastest man-made object to escape Earth’s gravity. It passed the Moon’s orbit in only nine hours, a record!
Many of the technologies used in NASCAR are the same as those used in space travel, and many of the forces that keep a plane in the air also keep a race car on the road. Join us on STEM in 30 from the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina and look at the crossover between these forces and technologies.
People of Speed
Meet some of the people who have made speed their job.
Speed in Our Culture
A fascination with speed runs through our national culture. Music, film, and literature reflect Americans' desire to take off and watch the world race by. Fans of speed get their fix by attending things like airshows, rocket launches, or NASCAR races. All of this reminds us that we are a nation of speed.
The idea that characters can fly from planet to planet, or star to star, defying current science and technology, is central to science fiction. Although some of these ideas predated the space age, after the 1950s, fictional depictions of space travel needed to suggest conceivable ways to cross interstellar distances to seem plausible. Some authors suggested faster-than-light drives, hyper drives, jump drives, worm holes, and black holes.
Have you seen the movie Ford v. Ferrari? Hollywood has a long history of bringing to American audiences the drama, speed, and spectacle of international racing.
If you are a fan of Disney's Planes franchise, you might recognize this friendly face.
This Air Tractor AT-400A has been painted to resemble “Dusty Crophopper,” an agricultural plane who longs to become an air racer in the animated film Planes (2013) and a firefighter in the sequel Planes: Fire and Rescue (2014).
Dusty's desire to become an air racer reflects the need for speed that is a predominant feature of American culture. Alongside other air racers El Chupacabra and Ripslinger, Dusty and the movie Planes introduced the thrill and excitement of air racing to a new generation.