Maj. Gen. Joe H. Engle

• Retired NASA Senior Astronaut
• Retired U.S. Air Force

Joe Engle was honored for increasing knowledge of high speed aerodynamics through experimental flights with the X-15 research rocket airplane and the Space Shuttle. A NASA astronaut, he was a support crew member for Apollo 10 and trained as a lunar module pilot for both Apollo 14 and Apollo 17 moon missions. He flew as commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia on Nov. 12, 1981, on the second shuttle mission. It was the first time in history that a manned, orbital spacecraft returned to space for another mission. He is the only human to have flown two different types of winged vehicles into space, the X-15 and the Space Shuttle. He is the only astronaut to have manually flown the shuttle through re-entry and landing.