December 13, 2010 was frigid in St. Louis with the temperature about 16 degrees, but it was a good day to fly, especially for one of NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) and Boeing’s Phantom Ray. The two aircraft made aviation history on the same flight, thanks to some way-out-of-the-box thinking and a special adapter, both courtesy of Boeing engineers. The flight marked the first time in the SCA’s 33-year history that an aircraft other than a space shuttle orbiter hitched a ride on the back of the modified Boeing 747. The engineering and planning behind the special flight were more than a year in the making as NASA and Boeing worked out the details through a commercial space act agreement.