SpaceShipOne Makes History: First Private Manned Mission to Space

[DarkPhenyx]

Not quite Late Breaking News apaprently.

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/062104-2.htm

The world witnessed the dawn of a new space age today, as investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and Scaled Composites launched the first private manned vehicle beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The successful launch demonstrated that the final frontier is now open to private enterprise.

Under the command of test pilot Mike Melvill, SpaceShipOne reached a record breaking altitude of 328,491 feet (approximately 62 miles or 100 km), making Melvill the first civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere and the first private pilot to earn astronaut wings.

This flight begins an exciting new era in space travel,” said Paul G. Allen, sole sponsor in the SpaceShipOne program. “Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites are part of a new generation of explorers who are sparking the imagination of a huge number of people worldwide and ushering in the birth of a new industry of privately funded manned space flight.”

The historic flight also marks the first time an aerospace program has successfully completed a manned mission without government sponsorship. “Today’s flight marks a critical turning point in the history of aerospace,” said Scaled Composites founder and CEO Burt Rutan. “ We have redefined space travel as we know it.”

[Liberal Classic]

1. As a fan of space exploration

This is a big deal to me.

Now, the truth is that there's not much difference between 99km and 101km altitude, but 100km was suggested as a 'nice round number' by Theodore Von Karman of the National Academy of Sciences in the 1950s. It's been the bountry to space ever since.

[DarkPhenyx]

2. and if he can turn it around w/in two weeks...

...and do it all again he'll win the X-prize.