The first privately funded spacecraft carrying a human was launch...
The first privately funded spacecraft carrying a human was launched into space Mon. morning for a 2 hour space flight, said sponsor Scaled Composites (SC). According to reports, the SpaceShip One launch took place around 9:45 a.m. EST from…
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the Mojave Airport in Mojave, Cal. A White Knight jet carried the spacecraft 50,000 ft. into the air. Astronaut Michael Melville then detached the craft from the jet and proceeded an additional 62 miles above the Earth’s surface before returning to the airport for a landing. The flight was designed and built by Scaled Composites and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe congratulated the team on the successful flight and said the “pioneers” behind the flight are helping to “open the door to a new marketplace offering the experience of weightlessness and suborbital space flight to the public.” SpaceShip One’s flight took place just months ahead of the deadline for the Ansari X-Prize, where contestants must design and build a craft that can take up to 3 passengers into space, return to Earth with the craft substantially intact, and make the same flight in the same craft within 2 weeks. The $10 million prize is funded through Jan. 1.