ROD@SU-AI.ARPA (04/12/84)
From: Rod Brooks <ROD@SU-AI.ARPA>
a010 2304 05 Apr 84
PM-Names,650
Names in the News
HOUSTON (AP) - Chuck Yeager, who in 1947 became the first man to
travel faster than the speed of sound, now says he'd like to pilot the
space shuttle - but that it would be ''a waste of money'' to let him
do so.
''I wouldn't lend an awful lot to the program,'' the retired Air
Force brigadier general told the National Congress on Aerospace
Education on Thursday.
Yeager, 60, isn't used to taking a back seat to anyone, and he told
the 700 educators and industry executives he wouldn't care to be a
passenger on the shuttle.
''If I can't fly one, I don't want to ride,'' he said.
Yeager, who broke the sound barrier in the experimental X-1
aircraft, said he thinks the shuttle ''has returned the fun of
flying'' to the space program.
He and other test pilots were scornful of astronauts during the
infancy of the manned space program because they felt the new job did
not require much skill.
''It's not too hard to train a man to strap a capsule to his fanny
and go into space,'' Yeager said in 1963.
Yeager was portrayed as the paragon of jet test pilots in Tom
Wolfe's book ''The Right Stuff,'' which was made into a movie last
year.
ap-ny-04-06 0158EDT