You concentrate on what you are doing, to do the best job you can, to stay out of a serious situation. That’s the way the X-1 was.

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

There is no such thing as a natural born pilot. Whatever my aptitudes or talents, becoming a proficient pilot was hard work, really a lifetime's learning experience. For the best pilots, flying is an obsession, the one thing in life they must do continually. The best pilots fly more than the others; that's why they're the best. Experience is everything. The eagerness to learn how and why every piece of equipment works is everything. And luck is everything, too.

Everybody that I've ever seen that enjoyed their job was very good at it.

What good does it do to be afraid? It doesn't help anything. You better try and figure out what's happening and correct it.

I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit.

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