High and Fast: the X-15 Reached the Edge of Space

October 25, 2012

Pilot Neil Armstrong next to an X-15

EXPLOATIONS -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

Today, Doug Johnson and Frank Oliver tell about the first airplane that flew out of the Earth's atmosphere. It was designed to test equipment and conditions for future space flights. The plane was called the X-15.

The pilot of the huge B-52 bomber plane pushes a button. From under the plane's right wing, the black sharp-nosed X-15 drops free. It is eleven-and-one-half kilometers above the Earth.

Pilot Scott Crossfield is in the X-15's only seat. When he is clear of the B-52, he starts the X-15's rocket engine. And so begins the first powered flight of the experimental plane designed to take man to the edge of space.

The X-15 flies high over the sandy wasteland of California's Mojave Desert. Up, up it flies. After three minutes, its fuel has burned up. It is flying about two thousand kilometers an hour.

Scott Crossfield's voice tightens. His breathing becomes harder as the plane pushes against the atmosphere. At that speed, the pressure is three times the force of gravity.

Then the X-15 pushes over the top of its flight path. It settles into a long, powerless slide toward the landing field at Edwards Air Force Base.

Designers of the X-15 have warned Crossfield about the landing. They say it will be like driving a race car toward a brick wall at one hundred sixty kilometers an hour, hitting the brakes, and stopping less than a meter from the wall. Crossfield lands the plane without any problem. His success shows, as one newspaper reports, that "The United States has men to match its rockets. "