Milt Thompson and M2-F2

Before there were space shuttles, there were "lifting body" research aircraft used to validate ideas on how an airplane-like spacecraft might re-enter the atmosphere and fly back to Earth. This is one of those lifting bodies, the M2-F2, attached to a pylon on the wing of the B-52 that was used to carry it aloft. In the cockpit ahead of a 1966 flight is NASA test pilot Milt Thompson.