The first one to reach outer space in the Man In Space Soonest program was which Captain in the United States Air Force, an American World War II pilot, an experimental physicist, and NASA test pilot?
Man in Space Soonest Man In Space Soonest (MISS) was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to put a man into outer space before the Soviet Union. The program was cancelled on August 1, 1958, and was replaced by NASA's Project Mercury. Only two men from the program would actually reach outer space. The first, Joseph A. Walker, did so twice in two X-15 rocket plane tests in 1963. Another, Neil Armstrong, became a NASA astronaut in 1962 and became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969.
Cesar Rodriguez (United States Air Force pilot) Cesar Antonio "Rico" Rodriguez was a United States Air Force officer and pilot from 1981 to 2006. With his three air-to-air combat victories, he joined Thomas Dietz, Robert Hehemann, and Robert Wright (all USAF officers) as the closest to becoming an air ace than any American pilot since the Vietnam War. Rodriguez scored his first two kills in 1991, during the first Gulf War, against a Mikoyan MiG-29 and a Mikoyan MiG-23 of the Iraqi Air Force. His third kill came against a MiG-29 of the Yugoslavian Air Force during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.