Muroc/Edwards Air Force Base

Muroc Field, (later renamed Edwards Air Force Base) is located 150 miles north of Los Angeles in the high desert. It is a desolate area full of dry lakebeds, sagebrush and Joshua trees. The temperature reaches 110 degrees regularly and drops to freezing at night. But the lakebeds form perfect natural runways and are so large that there is plenty margin for error. Only the top test pilots are assigned to Edwards, and its inhabitants take a certain pride in its lack of creature comforts.

Cape Canaveral

Home of the Mercury launch site, No See' Um bugs, hardpack sand and groupies in bikinis, the Cape is off limits to wives and heaven for astronauts, since it combines the Edwards-like glories of privation and hard work with an abundance of goodies.

Glamorous Glynnis

Chuck Yeager's planes always carry this name. Glynnis is his beautiful young wife...