His first rocket plane flight in the Bell X-1B experienced a nose gear failure on landing.
California's XCOR Aerospace, for instance, is building the Lynx rocket plane, which will also carry passengers and payloads.
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He flew the X-15 rocket plane to the edge of space - 200, 000 feet up at 4, 000 mph.
It took off slung beneath the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, which does the job of lifting the rocket plane to its launch altitude - some 45, 000ft (14km).
It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan and his colleagues to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
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Passengers will ride the rocket plane for the fun of it, but scientists would use it for the same reasons they also fly experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) or on sounding rockets - to access microgravity conditions.
Before being chosen in 1962 as one of the "Group II" astronauts -- which included Apollo 13 commander James Lovell along with such legends as Frank Borman, Pete Conrad and John Young -- Armstrong was one of the elite pilots selected to fly the X-15 rocket plane up to five times the speed of sound and toward the edge of space.
The 13 men 11 Saudis, one Iraqi and one Sudanese were suspected of having plotted missile and bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia and, perhaps, of having fired a rocket at an American war-plane.
Waheed Arshad, denied some local news reports that the president's plane was targeted by a rocket.
Whether the missile was fired by the plane, which locals believe, or was a misfired anti-aircraft rocket, is hard to say.
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