I somehow find it heartening but scary that the new NASA scramjet that can travel two miles a second still gets taken up for a test drive by an airplane built 45 years ago.
That old bird is no doubt older than 3/4 of the guys working on this project.
correction: It is actually a B52-B that is doing the heavy lifting, which was built in 1955 and transferred to NASA in 1959. (serial number 52-008).
Here she is in 1967 carrying an X-15 on a test flight:
