In Memoriam: Joe Engle

Astronaut Joe Engle died July 10, 2024. He was 91. I grew up watching astronauts defy the dangers of space on our old black & white television. They made an impression. We should reserve our mourning for those closest to us, but I always feel a pang of sadness when an astronaut passes away.

Joe Engle as STS-2 mission commander

Many astronauts have passed away since the dawn of the Space Age. Of the first few classes of US astronauts (i.e., for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs), very few are left. Joe Engle was special in my eye, because he became an astronaut long before he boarded an actual spaceship. He was not one of the original Mercury, Gemini or Apollo astronauts; he was selected for the sixth group of astronauts. While he never flew for the Apollo program, he became an astronaut long before he was named on the backup crew to Apollo 11. It’s a little-known fact, but there are test pilots who qualified for their astronaut wings long before they set foot in a spacecraft; Joe Engle was one of them. Joe Engle is one of the few test pilots who flew to the edge of space in the X-15 experimental airplane. After missing the chance to fly into space during the Apollo program, Engle went on to fly on two Space Shuttle missions: STS-2 and STS51I. So, he became one of the few astronauts who flew two different winged spacecrafts.

Joe Engle with space shuttle Enterprise

With his passing, I feel just as sad as I did whenever a Mercury, Gemini or Apollo astronaut passed away. Those few astronauts who flew these missions were legends in their own time. It’s hard to see the passing of a legend. I feel Engle is a legend too. Watching old videos of his suborbital X-15 flight, I am always as much in awe as when I watch films of Mercury, Gemini or Apollo launches.

Engle flew to the edge of space for the first time in 1965, shortly after the conclusion of the Mercury program. Both programs produced awe-inspiring feats of engineering, bravery and skill, but while the Mercury astronauts were mostly guinea pigs (“spam in the can”), an X-15 pilot had actual control of his craft while cruising on the edge of space. I can only imagine the level of cool-headedness, skills and experience it required to fly such a plane at Mach 10. Reentry was not a matter left for a computer to handle; it was up to the pilot in the cockpit. How challenging it must have been.

Joe Engle during the STS-51I space shuttle mission

While some of the original Mercury astronauts and the newer groups of astronauts were embarking on the adventure of the Gemini program, Engle, not yet of their number, was already on the NASA payroll and earning his astronaut’s wings by flying the X-15 to the edge of space. In my eye, that makes him as much as an astronaut hero as Alan B. Sheppard, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.

Apollo era Joe Engle