SpaceShipOne Completes 1st Prize Flight

Soaring to 358,000 ft (109.1 km), Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, piloted by Mike Melvill, completed the first of two suborbital space flights necessary to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The contest requires that the flight contain three passengers or the equivalent of two plus a pilot, the latter case being here. Despite reaching this lofty height, the craft did experience some unexpected behavior, per a number of press outlets, including 20 or more barrel rolls that citizen astronaut Melvill was able to correct.

The next flight to win the prize is scheduled for October 4, but that flight may be postponed in order to investigate today’s flight issue. Still, this is an important milestone for human spaceflight, made even more historic by the agreement with Virgin Galactic, the new commercial space tourism company created by Virgin magnate Richard Branson. That company has formed an agreement with Scaled Composites, the company that is flying and built SpaceShipOne, to fly people to space for hundreds of thousands of dollars as opposed to tens of millions (as was the case with Tito and Shuttleworth).

“We’ve always had a dream of developing a space tourism business and Paul Allen’s vision, combined with Burt Rutan’s technological brilliance, have brought that dream a step closer to reality. The deals with both their companies, being announced today, are just the start of what we believe will be a new era in the history of mankind, making the affordable exploration of space by human beings real. We hope to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above, the stars in all their glory and the amazing sensation of weightlessness. The development will also allow every country in the world to have their own astronauts rather than the privileged few.”

That vision should pave the way for a viable space tourism industry that will explode in the next 20 years. I cannot wait to take my first suborbital flight—maybe they’ll go to the moon by the time I can afford it!