09 July 2004

First private flight to the edge of space

An historic advance in space flight occurred on 21 June 2004 when Mike Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 100 km (about 62 miles). Melvill became the first civilian pilot to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere and the first private pilot to earn astronaut wings.

SpaceShipOne was designed by Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites. Its development was sponsored solely by entrepreneur Paul G. Allen.

In a statement for the media, Allen said, "Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites are part of a new generation of explorers who are sparking the imagination of a huge number of people worldwide and ushering in the birth of a new industry of privately funded manned space flight."

SpaceShipOne gliding back to base during flight 15P in an air-to-air photograph. Photograph courtesy of Scaled Composites. Click image to enlarge.

Allen has experience in innovative projects. He and Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft while developing a version of BASIC for the Altair 8800, the first successful hobby computer (see "The Altair story; early days at MITS" at www.forrestmims.org).

SpaceShipOne has caused NASA to completely reconsider its position regarding private spacecraft development. As Rutan stated after the flight of SpaceShipOne, "We have redefined space travel as we know it. Our success proves without question that manned space flight does not require mammoth government expenditures. It can be done by a small company operating with limited resources and a few dozen dedicated employees."

While SpaceShipOne goes beyond the traditional definition of amateur science, it can arguably be considered as an ultimate example of citizen science. Thanks to Rutan's craft and Allen's sponsorship, a new era of space flight has arrived.

For details about SpaceShipOne, photographs, videos and media releases, see www.scaled.com/index.htm.

Forrest M. Mims III