X-15
From Conservapedia
The X-15 was a hypersonic rocket plane used for research on whether the human body could stand such high speeds. The aircraft's designers used a .45 caliber bullet as the basic design for the plane. Only three were built, but overall it made 199 flights.
The maiden flight of the plane was on June 8, 1959 by Scott Crossfield, who flew the plane more times than anyone else. He also flew the plane to the greatest height: 354,200 feet above ground. The plane was too rocket-like to take off from the ground. Instead, a B-52 Stratofortress "mother ship" carried the plane under it's right wing up to 45,000 feet, where the plane would be dropped. Then the pilot was on his own, although an average flight took about four minutes after the plane was released from the bomber. Usually, during test flights, there is a chase plane to watch the tested plane and follow it, but with the X-15, nothing could keep up with it after the release. In an extremely short time, the plane would be up to past 200,000 ft and going Mach 5. One test pilot recalled, "[The X-15] really left the scene after you lit that engine."
The most famous pilot of the X-15 was Neil Armstrong, who flew it seven times, and later entered NASA. Some of the other pilots included Joe Walker, who was later killed in a XB-70 crash, Bob White, and Milt Thompson.
The plane was landed deadstick at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The glide angle down was so steep that only an F-104 Starfighter (which was sometimes called "a missile with a man in it") could keep with it at that angle.
The program suffered only one fatal crash, when pilot Michael Adams' attitude indicator became wrong and took him back into the atmosphere flying sideways, which confused his control system and took him into a spin, increasing the pressure on the plane to 8 G's. The airplane disintegrated over the runway, killing Adams.
The X-15's last flight took place in 1968, and now one of the craft hangs in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In a manner of speaking, it opened the doors of space.
