Giant Leaps 100 km

105 meters = 100 kilometers

You are looking down on your backyard from a height one-quarter of the distance to the International Space Station.

Anyone who flies this high gets to be called an astronaut (or a Russian cosmonaut, or a Chinese taikonaut). In the early 1960s, the U.S. X-15 Aircraft was flown up to 108 kilometers (64 miles). The pilot received his "astronautical wings," in recognition of becoming an astronaut.