Decals on a Northrop M2-F3 was a heavyweight lifting body built by the Northrop Corporation in 1969 for NASA. The "M" refers to "manned" and "F" refers to "flight" version.

On display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Lifting bodies are powered aircraft whose actual form provides flight lift -- compared to a conventional airplane, whose main body is not capable of getting lift, which forces it to rely on wings. The data gathered by NASA during a decade of studying lifting bodies led to the design of the Space Shuttle.

The first lifting body, the unpowered M2-F1, was built in 1963. The M2-F2 was powered. It was designed to be flown into the air by a B-52, then released. In May 1967, after 10 months of glide tests, the M2-F2 crashed spectacularly on Muroc Dry Lake (now Rogers Dry Lake) near Edwards Air Force Base. Pilot Bruce Peterson miraculously survived! (This footage was later shown at the start of every episode of the "Six Million Dollar Man" TV show.)

Northrop rebuilt the craft as the M2-F3. A middle third fin was added to provide stability control. Over time, additional features such as:

1) reaction control thruster system 2) rate command augmentation system (in which the pilot stick inputs do not directly map to control surface deflections, but rather are interpreted by a flight computer that manages the deflections; the amount of force used on the stick "rates" the same amount of force applied by the aircraft, no matter how much windspeed there is). 3) a side-arm control stick (since the aircraft now had a fly-by-wire system, the control stick was being tested to see how minute adjustments could be incorporated by a human being used the side-stick controller).