[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“...I don’t know if I would call him a pioneer of space exploration...”

Agreed. Riding an X-1 etc in the atmosphere is hardly ‘space exploration’. Me thinks it is sour grapes, or maybe grapes of wrath.

[tanknetter]

Agreed. Riding an X-1 etc in the atmosphere is hardly ‘space exploration’. Me thinks it is sour grapes, or maybe grapes of wrath.

Not the X-1, but maybe the NF-104. The X-15 pilots (of which Yeager was not one) got Astronaut Wings for some of their flights.

Yeager was an old NACA guy. Also VERY competitive. He was the old hand out at Muroc/Edwards when the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were the young bucks ("college boys") and I'm sure that he's resentful that their degrees got them rides into space. At the time of John Glenn's return to space I thought it would be neat to put Yeager into the seat next to him. So long as they were dumped out into Discovery's cargo bay with pugel sticks for the first micro-gravity deathmatch.

I'd also note, perhaps most importantly, that Buzz Aldrin is against a NASA-led return to the Moon as well. He wants private industry to do it.