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SANTA MONICA - The countdown has begun. Noted aviation designer Burt Rutan announced Tuesday that his SpaceShipOne will make its first flight attempt to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize on Sept. 29 from the Mojave Airport Civilian Aerospace Test Center. The SpaceShipOne team already claimed a historic first as the only privately funded manned space program to reach suborbital space with a successful June 21 flight to 328,000 feet. The feat made pilot Mike Melvill the nation's first civilian astronaut in a nongovernment program. Now Mojave Aerospace Ventures - the partnership between Rutan's Scaled Composites and billionaire investor Paul...

Publicly thanking Paul G. Allen, who admitted to investing more than $20 million in the project, Rutan appeared to physically choke up when he said, "We were able to develop a complete space program from scratch for the price of one of those government paper studies." ...Mojave Airport Manager Stu Witt... said. "Nobody's ever done anything like this before," Pearson said. "That's part of what's unique about America--nowhere else in the world. It's a great day for the country." Non-military government involvement was limited. In fact, according to Rutan, the first contact between NASA and the program participants came...

The roar from SpaceShipOne as it blasted into the history books last month, along with the media frenzy that surrounded the first private suborbital spacecraft launch, has long since dissipated; but a ripple of hope about the future of public space travel remains

July 8, 2004 - After announcing this week that the control problems associated with June's historic space flight were solved, Burt Rutan said that the next flights of SpaceShipOne would be official attempts to garner the $10 million Ansari X Prize. Rutan told Wired Online Tuesday (July 6) that his team plans to do three flights in two weeks, although he gave no indication as to when the flights would take place. That's one more flight than required, just in case SpaceShipOne falls short on the first or second attempts. Rutan will give EAA AirVenture attendees the latest information about...

Two major problems experienced during last month's suborbital space flight of Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne vehicle have been corrected, Wired News reported Wednesday. In an interview, Burt Rutan said that engineers have solved a problem with a roll trim actuator that SpaceShipOne experienced late in the powered portion of the vehicle's flight. While Rutan said immediately after the June 21 flight that the problem was serious, he downplayed the problem in the Wired interview, saying that the actuator had hit a mechanical stop that limited its movement. Rutan also said that the strong roll the vehicle encountered immediately after starting its...

Private space ship 'back to form' SpaceShipOne, the world's first private space craft, is back on course for the Ansari X-Prize after solving technical hitches following June's historic trip. The craft, built by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, had a technical problem as it reached the pinnacle of its record-breaking 100km voyage above the Earth. Pilot Mike Melvill had to use a back-up system to control the craft. But Rutan said the problem had been merely "a brief lockout" which only lasted three seconds. 'Not as serious' At a press conference following the historic flight on 21 June, Rutan told...

This is a great slide show of the Spaceship one... Hope I did this right!

Amid all the acclaim for Burt Rutan, spaceship designer, and pilot Mike Melvill, who carried off their private manned expedition to suborbital space last week, the bigger miracle may have been committed by the sponsors of the X Prize. The group had been keeping up appearances since 1996, but only recently found a way to fully fund its promised $10 million prize -- a bow here to Anousheh Ansari, the Iranian-born telecom entrepreneur who devoted a small chunk of her bubble-era fortune to the cause. Peter Diamandis, the X Prize founder, expected that some $100 million would end up being...

Flight data from the first private vehicle to soar beyond the Earth's atmosphere has been posted by Scaled Composites, designer and builder of the SpaceShipOne. The flight was not trouble-free. With 63-year-old pilot Mike Melvill at the controls, SpaceShipOne's fourth powered flight on June 21 sliced through the sky high over Mojave, California desert. It was the first commercial astronaut flight by exceeding 328,000 feet (100 kilometers) -- to the edge of space. The flight marked the first time an aerospace program had successfully completed a piloted mission without government sponsorship. Momentum carried the day On the June 21 flight...

If there was a single word to describe how Burt Rutan and his team felt on the day before their historic flight, it would be confident. All the work preparing SpaceShipOne for its flight has been completed days earlier, and Rutan noted that on Saturday, two days before the planned flight, the hangar was dark all day long. Mike Melvill, the pilot selected to fly SpaceShipOne, could barely contain his enthusiasm during the preflight press conference. “I am ready to go, boy, I am ready to go!” he said in a manner not unlike an athlete revving up for a...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 June 25 Planet Earth from SpaceShipOne Credit: Scaled Composites Explanation: On June 21st, pilot Mike Melvill made a historic flight in the winged craft dubbed SpaceShipOne -- the first private manned mission to space. The spaceship reached an altitude of just over 62 miles (100 kilometers) on a suborbital trajectory, similar to the early space flights in NASA's Mercury Program. So, how was the view? A video...

With a triumphant thumbs-up and a broad grin, the pilot of the SpaceShipOne rocket plane celebrated becoming the first private-sector astronaut to steer his ship into space.

A milestone in the birth of a new kind of space age IT IS early in the morning in Mojave, and a pink blush has appeared on the horizon. One by one the stars are fading, and to the south of the airport a line of car headlights snakes into the distance. There is, however, no chance of hearing birdsong during what would otherwise be a serene desert dawn, for rock music is pumping out of huge speakers along the runway. Welcome to the age of commercial spaceflight. Prepare your chequebook for take-off. On June 21st, Mike Melvill fired his...

America’s interest in space travel has been declining since the heady Apollo days. SpaceShipOne’s successful launch may rekindle the flame

SpaceShipOne Pilot Glimpses Edge of Clinton Book Hype Mike Melvill, the world's first private-industry astronaut, said today that as SpaceShipOne reached the zenith of its 62-mile high space flight, he caught a glimpse of the upper edge of the hype surrounding former President Bill Clinton's new memoir, My Life. "I saw the curvature of the earth's atmosphere, the blackness of outer space and shimmering crest of the Clinton book hyposphere," said Mr. Melvill. His discovery may put to rest the debate in the scientific community over whether the hype ever comes to an end. "From what I saw," said Mr....

Coast to Coast AM: Space Ship One Thread 10PM PDT / 1AM EDT First Hour: James Oberg will report on the launch of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.

Today's successful launch of the private SpaceShipOne high above the sands of California's Mojave Desert, marks the beginning of a new era of incumbent space agencies being challenged by new players.

MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA -- There were tense times during the sky-blistering flight of SpaceShipOne here this morning. Fighting control problems, pilot Mike Melvill wrestled with several anomalies that cut short a pre-planned altitude mark.

Burt Rutan, designer of numerous state-of-the-art flying machines including the note-worthy "Voyager" aircraft that flew around the world non-stop and un-refueled, is poised to set another record. This time, he has designed and built an aircraft that is an entrant for the Ansari X-Prize competition. Pilot Mike Melvill will be at the controls for the record flight, the first private-owned flight into space (62miles/1000km high). Another aircraft, a "StarShip" built by Beechcraft (now known as Ratheon), is a unique modern composite-built design that will fly chase during the missions. "This flight is one of the most exciting and challenging activities...