[Lancey Howard]

In any event, Shepard was the only American to precede Glenn into space.
Grissom was after.

Also, I have an old book from circa 1960 about the X15 that says Chuck Yeager was the first man in space.

[Lancey Howard]

Ooopss... My bad.
Grissom DID go into space before Glenn.
I stand corrected by myself..

[hinckley buzzard]

I think it was test pilot Yeager who teased the astronauts about how they weren't doing anything a monkey hadn't done first.

He was right of course. The earliest astronauts were just along for the ride.

[Erasmus]

Not in the X-15; Yeager was not a pilot in that program.

Nine X-15 drivers qualified for astronaut wings by NASA criteria (50 mi) and one of them also by FIA criteria (100 kM). I think these were the only Americans who got to space in an aerospace plane.