Bill Dana
William Harvey Dana was an American aeronautical engineer, Air Force pilot, NASA research pilot, and X-15 astronaut. His spaceflight record comes from the United States 50-mile definition of space rather than orbital flight.
- Born
- November 3, 1930
- Died
- May 6, 2014
- Birthplace
- Pasadena, California,United States
Flights
2
Spacewalks
N/A
EVA time
N/A
In space
Two X-15 suborbital spaceflights above 50 miles
Bio
Dana graduated from West Point and later earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Southern California. He served as a U.S. Air Force pilot before joining NASA's high-speed flight-research world at what became Dryden Flight Research Center.
He flew the X-15 sixteen times and crossed the 50-mile altitude line twice, on Flight 174 in 1966 and Flight 197 in 1968. Those flights qualified him for astronaut wings, although formal recognition came decades later.
Dana also flew lifting-body test vehicles that helped shape Space Shuttle landing research, including the M2-F1, HL-10, M2-F3, and X-24B. He retired from NASA in 1998 after nearly forty years of research, engineering, and leadership work.