Chuck Yeager

Epicness.

It might help blur the line between the Air Force and NASA (and I've come to believe that the Military being involved in Space would have helped; all your moon base and space station dreams would have come true at some point).
 
Epicness.

It might help blur the line between the Air Force and NASA (and I've come to believe that the Military being involved in Space would have helped; all your moon base and space station dreams would have come true at some point).

we should have kept the X15 and DynaSoar.. they had more capability and the entire Air Force program was pretty solid. Damn McNamara for cancelling them
 
We'd have an egomaniac as the first US man in space ?

You describe every test pilot. Least every one that works at Edwards.



At the OP, I know at some point it was decided that only officers with college degrees would go up. Get that changed and Yeager would have a pretty decent shot.

As to what it would do, not much I think. Yeager might have more political pull so maybe more money for NASA. I doubt it would increase the military aspect of the space program though, every Mercury astronaut was from the military after all. People higher then Yeager made that call, unless he has the political pull of course.
 
Yeager's lack of a degree was one factor, but I seem to recall reading he didn't want to be "spam in a can", especially because the early missions were largely computer-controlled (and often "piloted" by primates).
-can't remember if that anecdote was from the eponymous book he wrote with Leo Janos or Tom Wolfe's "the Right Stuff".
 
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