Description:
- The mesosphere is the highest layer of the Earth's atmosphere that isn't really `outer space', and lies between the stratopause
at 50 km and the mesopause at the base of the exosphere - `true 'space - at around 80-90 km. Starting with Ham and Yury Gagarin,
2 pan troglodytes and 533 humans have passed that 80 km exospheric boundary and become space travellers; they zipped through the
mesosphere on the way.
- 11 humans - the `mesonauts' - have made flights that got as far as the mesosphere but not the exosphere. 10 of those eleven
mesonauts later went on to make higher `astronaut' flights.
Only 3 of the 11 are alive today. Here are details of the first mesospheric flights of the mesonauts as well as their their first
exospheric flights.
Mesonaut flights:
Mesonaut 1st MesoFlight km Date NMeso Spaceflight (Exoflight)
1 Joe Walker (1921-1966) X-15 2-14-28 52 1961 Mar 30 6 X-15 3-14-24 1963 Jan 17
2 Robert White (1924-2010 X-15 2-20-36 66 1961 Oct 11 3 X-15 3-7-14 1962 Jul 10
3 Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) X-15 3-3-7 55 1962 Apr 5 2 Gemini 8 1966 Mar 16
4 Robert Rushworth (1924-1993) X-15 3-19-30 68 1963 Jun 18 3 X-15 3-20-31 1963 Jun 27
5 Joe Engle (1932- ) X-15 1-46-73 53 1964 Apr 8 5 X-15 3-44-67 1965 Jun 29
6 Milton Thompson (1926-1993) X-15 1-54-88 54 1965 May 25 2
7 Jack McKay (1922-1975) X-15 2-40-72 65 1965 Jul 8 7 X-15 3-49-73 1965 Sep 28
8 Pete Knight (1929-2004) X-15 2-46-83 58 1966 Jul 21 7 X-15 3-64-95 1967 Oct 17
9 William Dana (1930- ) X-15 3-54-80 54 1966 Aug 19 6 X-15 3-56-83 1966 Nov 1
10 Mike Adams (1930-1967) X-15 1-71-121 51 1967 Apr 28 2 X-15 3-65-97 1967 Nov 15
11 Mike Melvill (1940- ) SS1 56L/14P 64 2004 May 13 1 SS1-60L/15P 2004 Jun 21
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Note: John B. 'Jack' McKay and William 'Pete' Knight made the most mesoflights, 7 each.
Ref: #7(JR666) - update: 17.11.12