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SpaceShipOne has made Space History

Oct 8, 2004 10: 41 EST
Published Oct 4, 2004 11: 14 EST

Brian Binnie (top left in image), flew the second leg of the X Prize competition in Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.

This is the final successful attempt for the XPrize. The $10 million prize is given to the first privately financed team who can make two successful manned space flights in a craft able to carry three people.

The aeronautic rules also states that the pilot must come back in good health, i.e. "survive for 24 hours after landning".

Images of the Pilots, Brian top left, and today's space flight - bottom.

"We are heading to orbit sooner than you think," Burt Rutan, the creator said earlier. "We do not intend to stay in low-earth orbit for decades. The next 25 years will be a wild ride. ... One that history will note was done for the benefit of everyone."

Rutan said he expects the flight of SpaceShipOne to have an effect comparable to a set of public demonstrations that the Wright brothers carried out in Paris in 1908.

The reason, Rutan said, is because those demonstrations showed people "that's something I can do, because a couple of bicycle shop guys can do it". In the same way, he said, this low-cost flight into space will lead people to realise that "hey, this is something for us to do now, this is not just for governments ".

Vulcan, Inc and Scaled Composites the companies behind SpaceShipOne, are of 24 companies from several countries competing for the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which will go to the first privately funded group to send three people on a suborbital flight 62.5 miles (100.6 kilometers) high and repeat the feat within two weeks using the same vehicle.

The nonprofit X Prize Foundation is sponsoring the contest to promote the development of a low-cost, efficient craft for space tourism in the same way prize competitions stimulated commercial aviation in the early 20th century.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has invested more than $20 million in Scaled Composites to create the manned program -- a fraction of what government-sponsored efforts have cost.

"Space flight is not only for governments to do," Rutan said. "Clearly, there's an enormous pent-up hunger to fly into space and not just dream about it."

The craft embodies several innovations, including a unique hybrid rocket motor, a new method of re-entering the atmosphere that requires no active controls, and the first operational space vehicle made entirely of carbon composite rather than metal.

The Eagle has landed. SpaceShipOne has won the 10 million X Prize contest, and opened a new route to Space.

The pilot, Brian Binnie, grabbed the previous Mike Melvill's torch and flew the second leg of the X Prize competition. A graduate of the U.S. Navy's test pilot school, he was at the controls when SpaceShipOne broke the sound barrier for the first time on a December test flight, which was marred when the craft hit the runway of Mojave Airport hard upon landing and veered into the brush.

Image of the SpaceShipOne Pilots, Brian Binnie top left.

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