A superb early portrait of the most famous astronaut in history, when he was still a NASA research pilot before being selected for the second class of nine NASA astronauts on September 17, 1962.

Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (later NASA’s Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH) in 1955. Later that year, he transferred to the NACA’s High-Speed Flight Station in Edwards, California, as an aeronautical research scientist and then as a NASA aeronautical research pilot at NASA’s Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base.

Armstrong made his first X-15 flight on November 30, 1960.