FAA licenses California company's private manned rocket

Sac Bee ^ | 4/7/04 | Leslie Miller - AP

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government announced Wednesday that it has issued the first license for a manned suborbital rocket, a step toward opening space flight to private individuals for the first time. The Federal Aviation Administration gave a one-year license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., headed by Burt Rutan. He is best known for designing the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in 1986.

[NormsRevenge]

[AntiKev]

Might wanna ping the GA list.

[Support Free Republic]

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[scab4faa]

What the heck is that!

[NormsRevenge]

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/ ;; Photos , etc

[farmfriend]

space ping.

[KevinDavis]

For once a real space race is happening...

[anymouse]

What the heck is that!

"The future my boy, the future." :)

[Falcon4.0]

WOW, , ,68,000 feet.
Just 262,000 feet to go!

Looser!!!

[concentric circles]

The glide into Mojave Airport.

Hard landing in December.

Make a hard left at the tower.

[endthematrix]

FAA Licenses Mojave Spaceport, Scaled's SpaceShipOne Flies Again

By Mary Grady
Newswriter, Editor

Onward To The Universe (And Beyond?)...
At somewhere around Mach 2 and 105,000 feet, Scaled Composite's SpaceShipOne last Thursday took Peter Siebold to a place where civilian pilots have never gone before. The test flight launched just one day after the FAA's announcement that it had granted its first-ever license for suborbital manned rocket flight to Scaled Composites, of Mojave, Calif. The license was issued April 1 by the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation for a sequence of flights spanning a one-year period. The FAA license is required for U.S. contenders in the X PRIZE competition. The X PRIZE foundation will award $10 million to the first company or organization to launch a vehicle capable of carrying three people to a height of 62.5 miles, return them safely to Earth, and repeat the flight with the same vehicle within two weeks. Twenty-seven contestants representing seven countries have registered for the X PRIZE. Rutan's effort is funded by multi-billionaire Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. Thursday's flight was the second powered flight for SpaceShipOne, which flew its first powered test flight on Dec. 17, when it broke the sound barrier. On Thursday, the engine burned for 40 seconds. The aircraft had previously undergone extensive flight testing in glide mode.
http://www.avweb.com/newswire/10_16a/leadnews/187064-1.html