SpaceShipOne replica highlights flight museum

Valley Press ^ | on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 | ALLISON GATLIN

[BenLurkin]

A true-to-life replica of the historic SpaceShipOne spacecraft is set to debut at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wis. The replica was built by employees at Scaled Composites in Mojave using the same composite molds as the original spacecraft.

"To have SpaceShipOne built from the same molds, by the same people, is really something special," said Dick Knapinski , association spokesman.

Designed by Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne shot into the record books with a trio of suborbital spaceflights above Mojave in 2004, making it the world's first privately funded manned space program. The last two flights to the edge of space clinched the $10 million Ansari X Prize and made pilots Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie the nation's first civilian commercial astronauts.

Their feats helped inaugurate the nascent space tourism industry, of which Scaled Composites and partner Virgin Galactic expect to play a part.

The original spacecraft is displayed in the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The exhibit is set to open to the public July 25 during AirVenture Oshkosh 2006, the association's annual gathering.

Rutan and Melvill, longtime members of the association, are scheduled to be on hand for the dedication of what the association terms its most ambitious museum display yet.

Rather than being a static display, the SpaceShipOne replica will demonstrate the unique "feathering" maneuver the spacecraft employed in order to safely re-enter the atmosphere. This feathering of the wings and tail, used to slow the spacecraft, basically folds the spaceship in half and causes it to descend like a shuttlecock.

The replica will be joined by a video display showing highlights of the program's development and flights, "a lot of things detailing what it took for civilians to put a spaceship together," Knapinski said.