Historic SpaceShipOne souvenirs available until March 15

Valley Press ^ | on Saturday, March 12, 2005 | ALLISON GATLIN

[BenLurkin]

MOJAVE - Time is running out for those interested in claiming souvenirs of the historic SpaceShipOne spaceflights. The nonprofit Rocket Boosters will cease Internet sales of the exclusive licensed merchandise on March 15.

The gear - shirts, mugs, calendars, pins and similar memorabilia - may be ordered at the organization's Web site, www.rocketboosters.org. As the sale is winding down, some merchandise is limited.

Created by famed aviation designer Burt Rutan and built at his Scaled Composites in Mojave, SpaceShipOne made history last year as the first privately funded, manned space program. It claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize with twin flights to more than 62 miles above the Earth in five days.

The brainchild of Rutan's wife, Tonya, the Rocket Boosters is a coalition of area nonprofits which secured exclusive rights to the SpaceShipOne logo for use on souvenir merchandise. Proceeds from the sales, which began last summer, are distributed among the various charities. Already, some $144,000 has been distributed.

The organization will also auction two Star Wars toys flown into space aboard the final SpaceShipOne flight and signed by Burt Rutan and the program's two astronauts. Proceeds from this eBay auction will also benefit the charities.

"It's something you never would've thought would bloom," said Rocket Booster Glenda Willie, who has been in charge of the more than 3,500 Web site orders filled in the last nine months.

"That's a lot of orders coming from one computer," she said.

Volunteers from the community groups donated their time and efforts not only at the spaceflight events - showing up long before dawn for set-up, traffic duty and sales to early arrivals - but in the ensuing months of Web site sales that served customers around the world.