– could the space shuttle just fly into space like a plane, rather than being propelled vertically by rockets?

Question

– could the space shuttle just fly into space like a plane, rather than being propelled vertically by rockets?

In: 48

Answer 1

The X-15 was launched from a B-52 and technically did enter Space. Some of the X-15 pilots were awarded Astronaut wings.

From Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff:

On My 19 Joe Walker flew the X-15 to 347,800 feet, which was sixty-six miles up, surpassing the record of 314,750 feet set by Bob White the year before;and on August 22 Walker reached 354,200 feet, or sixty seven miles, which was seventeen miles into space. In addition to White and Walker, one other man had flown the X-15 above fifty miles. That was White’s backup, Bob Rushworth, who had achieved 285,000 feet, fifty four miles, in June. The Air Force had instituted the practice of awarding Air Force Astronaut wings to any Air Force pilot who flew above fifty miles. They used the term itself: astronaut. As a result, White and Rushworth, the Air Force’s prime and backup pilots for the X-15, now had their astronaut wings. Joe Walker, being a civilian flying the X-15 for NASA, did not qualify. So some of Walker’s good buddies at Edwards took him out to a restaurant for dinner, and they all knocked back a few, and they pinned some cardboard wings on his chest. The inscription read:”Ass-tronaut.”