{"id":64268,"date":"2026-08-16T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=e4167352c988d74de4dfa190b0cecb2f"},"modified":"2026-08-19T13:59:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T13:59:48","slug":"on-this-day-in-space-aug-16-1963-wingless-m2-f1-completes-1st-glide-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/08\/16\/on-this-day-in-space-aug-16-1963-wingless-m2-f1-completes-1st-glide-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"On this day in space! Aug. 16, 1963: Wingless M2-F1 completes 1st glide flight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/mbSTd6s0.html\" id=\"mbSTd6s0\" title=\"OTD in Space - Aug. 16: Wingless M2-F1 Completes 1st Glide Flight\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>On Aug. 16, 1963, NASA's M2-F1 aircraft prototype made its first glide flight. <\/p><p>This wingless aircraft kind of looked like a flying bathtub. NASA made it to test a new concept called the lifting body, which was an unpowered glider that provided an alternative way to return piloted spacecraft to Earth. Instead of pummeling out of the sky in a ballistic reentry, the lifting body landed sort of like an airplane. <\/p><p>For its first test flight, the M2-F1 was towed 5,200 feet into the air by a C-47 Skytrain and then released. Test pilot Milt Thompson was in the cockpit, and he brought the glider in for a smooth landing in California after a two-minute descent.<\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:1920px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img id=\"sySQ8hJAT2ESNp4ugec2Q4\" name=\"nasa-m2-f1-aircraft-glide-test\" alt=\"a small white aircraft with a pilot aboard is towed in flight by line extending to the dry lake bed below.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/sySQ8hJAT2ESNp4ugec2Q4.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">On Aug. 16, 1963, NASA's M2-F1 aircraft prototype made its first glide flight.  <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: NASA)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><h2 id=\"why-it-mattered-4\">Why it mattered<\/h2><p>The success of M2-F1's first glide flight proved a wingless lifting-body aircraft could be controlled and landed safely. The introduction of a second potential method of returning astronauts from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/24870-what-is-space.html\"><u>space<\/u><\/a> was a crucial consideration during a time when NASA was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/11336-space-race-united-states-soviets-spaceflight-50years.html\"><u>racing against the Soviet Union<\/u><\/a> for access to space and, ultimately, the moon. <\/p><p>Though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/38700-nasa-history.html\"><u>NASA<\/u><\/a> opted for the familiar capsule and heat shield design used during the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/24638-project-mercury.html\"><u>Mercury<\/u><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/24655-project-gemini.html\"><u>Gemini<\/u><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/apollo-program-overview.html\"><u>Apollo<\/u><\/a> programs, the M2-F1 and its subsequent test flights paved the way for NASA's continued research into lifting-bodies, and led to the development of an entire family of lifting-body test vehicles like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/15529-m2-f2-crash-rogers-dry-lake.html\"><u>M2-F2<\/u><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/19999-test-pilot-john-manke-m2-f3-lifting-body.html\"><u>M2-F3<\/u><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/20384-hl10-in-flight-after-launch.html\"><u>HL-10<\/u><\/a>, and the U.S. Air Force's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/19635-x24a-powered-flight-drop-from-b52.html\"><u>X-24A<\/u><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18100-x24b-on-lakebed.html\"><u>X-24B<\/u><\/a>, which executed lifting-body flights at much higher speeds and altitudes.<\/p><p>Eventually, data from these programs was applied to the development of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/16726-space-shuttle.html\"><u>space shuttle<\/u><\/a>, and the real-life practice of landing a spacecraft back on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\"><u>Earth<\/u><\/a> the same way you would an airplane.<\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On this day in space Aug. 16, 1963: NASA&#8217;s M2-F1 aircraft prototype makes its first glide flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":713,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1411,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-spaceflight","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/713"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64540,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64268\/revisions\/64540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}