Project High Jump
April 3rd, 1962 Lieutenant Commander John Young jumped into a super clean F4H-1 Phantom II and zoomed to an altitude of 82,000 feet in 230.44 seconds, establishing a world time-to-climb record. Not to be outdone, two days later, Neil Armstrong flew the X-15 at a speed of 2,830 miles per hour and reached an altitude of 179,000 feet. Of course, Armstrong would later set the absolute altitude record while commander of Apollo XI
Don't feel bad for Lieutenant Commander Young, he enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to make six space flights over 42 years of active NASA service. The ninth person to walk on the Moon is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice. The only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and commander of two Space Shuttle missions, including STS-01, the first mission of the Space Shuttle.
Don't feel bad for Lieutenant Commander Young, he enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to make six space flights over 42 years of active NASA service. The ninth person to walk on the Moon is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice. The only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and commander of two Space Shuttle missions, including STS-01, the first mission of the Space Shuttle.
On a side note, while commanding Apollo 16, Young claimed the highest speed ever attained by the Lunar Roving Vehicle at 10.6 mph, which was only designed to operate at a top speed of 8 mph. On Apollo 17, Eugene Cernan recorded a maximum speed of 11.2 mph, breaking Young's previous lunar speed record.
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