It wasn't that the X-1 would kill you, it was the systems in the X-1 that would kill you.

The one word you use in military flying is duty. It's your duty. You have no control over outcome, no control over pick-and-choose. It's duty.

Later, I realized that the mission had to end in a let-down because the real barrier wasn't in the sky but in our knowledge and experience of supersonic flight.

In 1966, NASA took over in space, and it has been a bureaucratic mess ever since.

All that I am ... I owe to the Air Force.

Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.

If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.