SPACE: Flight of the X- 1 5

At California's Edwards Air Force Base, slim, hawk-nosed Test Pilot Scott Crossfield, 37, leisurely finished a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, struggled into a silver-tinted pressure suit that had been tailored to a skintight fit by a girdle manufacturer. Minutes later, Crossfield strapped himself into the cramped cockpit of a needle-nosed, stub-winged plane that was locked into place beneath the right wing of an Air Force B-52 bomber. At 8 o'clock sharp the B-52 roared down the runway and lifted. It carried with it Scott Crossfield in the...