Flight Research’s cousins, a “notoriously freethinking” group of engineers called the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division—PARD—had developed an expertise in rocketry, setting up an adjunct operation on an isolated test range on Wallops Island off the Virginia coast. Their rockets had reached speeds of Mach 15 in flight, and they were confident of their abilities to lift a payload—a satellite and a human passenger—into orbit.
