In this historical photo from the U.S. space agency, an M2-F2 aircraft is seen after it crash landed on Rogers Dry Lakebed at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California on May 10, 1967.

The cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Oct. 11, 1965, issue featured Northrop Corp.'s M2-F2 lifting body research vehicle mated to the wing of a Boeing B-52 at NASA’s Flight Research Center ...

In this historical photo from the U.S. space agency, Jay L. King, Joseph D. Huxman and Orion D. Billeter assist NASA research pilot Milt Thompson (on the ladder) into the cockpit of the M2-F2 lifting ...

Some 45,000 ft. above the Southern California desert last week, a B-52 bomber cut loose the strange cargo tucked under its wing. Freed from the mother ship, a gleaming but cumbersome aluminum shape ...

The contraption looked more like an inverted flat iron than a flying machine. With two tail fins and no wings, a rounded belly and a flat top, the experimental craft M2-F2 was rolled out last week by ...

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Peterson's M2-F2 after the crash. It was about the hardest landing you can have and survive. Forty-four years ago today, NASA test pilot Bruce Peterson unwittingly created the intro for 1970s ...