The 1960s were a turbulent time, with the "Cold War" ongoing, a moon race in progress and an unpopular war in Vietnam. In the midst of this, eight military and civilian test pilots flew the radical X-15 rocket plane out of the atmosphere and into the record books, earning astronaut status. Until today, three of those early astronaut test pilots never received official recognition of their lofty membership as astronauts because only the military had astronaut wings to confer on their pilots at that time. Civilian NASA pilots had no such badge and were never recognized for going beyond the atmosphere and into space flying the X-15 experimental aircraft.
Long Overdue Recognition for Early Space Heroes
That inequity was rectified today when retired NASA pilot Bill Dana, and family members representing deceased pilots John B. McKay and Joseph A. Walker, received civilian astronaut wings. The wings acknowledged the fact the pilots flew the X-15 at altitudes of 50 miles or higher. The men were honored in a quiet ceremony at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base in California, site of their achievements.Bill Dana was philosophical about it: "NASA pilots didn't wear wings anyway, and the concept of winning special wings was probably more crucial to a military pilot's career ladder," he explained. Dana's first space flight took him 58.13 miles above the Mojave Desert on Nov. 1, 1966. He tried to collect micrometeorite samples, while learning about issues of sky brightness.
Joe Walker's third X-15 foray into space claimed the unofficial world altitude record of 354,200 feet, or 67.08 miles, on Aug. 22, 1963. Walker's unofficial record also marked the highest altitude to which the X-15 was ever flown.
John McKay attained 295,600 feet altitude, or 55.98 miles, on Sept. 28, 1965 during during a flight that investigated several research experiments.
The X-15 Program
The X-15 program used three piloted hypersonic rocket planes to fly as high as 67 miles and as fast as nearly seven times the speed of sound. Volumes of test data gleaned from 199 X-15 missions from 1959 through 1968 helped shape the successful Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle human spaceflight programs. Two retired X-15s are displayed at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C., and the Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio.-
Portions of this article were written with assistance from NASA press releases.