Harold Mitchell watched from the cockpit of his plane as a spacecraft fell from the sky. Four thousand feet above him, the spacecraft glinted in the sun as it dangled from a parachute. Mitchell called out to the crew in the cargo hold—they had to get ready to catch it. The men, all from the U.S. Air Force, opened the back of the plane and extended a set of poles with a rope and hooks at the end. Mitchell flew them closer, and the parachute disappeared under the nose of…
