A stronaut, X-15 test pilot and space shuttle pilot Joe Engle has died at home in Houston, Texas. He was 91. Engle passed peacefully surrounded by his family according to a NASA press release.

[Former NASA X-15 Pilots Awarded Astronaut Wings] One of those comes from Milt Thompson, who flew for NASA. Besides being a pilot for the X-15, he was also the first pilot to take aloft the flying ...

Today at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California astronaut wings will be awarded to the three civilian research pilots who flew the X-15 into space in the mid-1960s.

A signed photo of an X-15 by test pilot Joe Walker, who died when his NASA NF-104 collided with the second XB-70 Valkyrie prototype in June 1966, is listed on eBay for $1,199 USD.

For test pilots such as Mr. Engle, the X-15 was beloved because it was still fundamentally a plane, which they controlled from airborne launch to its landing on dry lakebeds in California.

"The X-15 Rocket Plane: Flying the First Wings into Space" by Michelle Evans, University of Nebraska Press, 450 pages, $36.95 Book review: X-15 pilots blazed path for Space Shuttle flights Skip to ...