First Re-entry,

 by Mike Machat

Ten-thirty AM, Tuesday, June 29, 1965, Edwards Air Force Base, California. Two small dark specks appear on the distant horizon, descending rapidly over the eastern edge of Rogers Dry Lake, one trailing a smoky exhaust, the other powerless, gliding down like a rock. On the shimmering lakebed, the ground crew lights a red smoke grenade to indicate wind direction. As the specks grow larger, one emerges into a Lockheed F-lO4 Starfighter, the other jet-black, dart-like experimental aircraft built by North American Aviation Corporation. It is the X-15, a mantis-shaped missile with its dual nose wheels and main landing skids extended scant seconds before it approaches the surface of the lakebed at a blistering speed of nearly 300 mph! As the exotic black rocket plane gently touches down on Runway 18, the research program's 138th mission comes to an end, and its 32-year-old pilot enters the history books as the youngest ever to qualify as an astronaut.

Air Force Captain Joe H. Engle earned that distinction by flying the third of three X-15s built, S/N 56-6672, to an altitude of 280,600 feet, more than fifty miles above the earth's surface in what officially qualifies as outer space. Although U.S. manned spaceflights had been underway for four years with the Mercury and Gemini orbital programs, only 3 other pilots had flown North America's winged missile into the far reaches of space. By the end of the X-15 program in 1968, 5 more pilots would join the exclusive rank of men becoming astronauts in a winged aircraft!

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