- MOJAVE, California --
SpaceShipOne
made history Monday and triumphed in the international Ansari X Prize race
to launch the first privately built spacecraft. The reward for finishing
first: $10 million.
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- The innovative little spaceplane, developed by aerospace
pioneer Burt Rutan and built with $20 million or more in cash from
billionaire
Paul Allen, vaulted across the boundary of space 100 kilometers above the
airport here, and kept on going.
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- With a new people's astronaut, Brian Binnie, at the
controls,
SpaceShipOne not only won the prize purse but also erased a 41-year-old
altitude record for winged aircraft. The old record of 354,300 feet was
set in 1963 by an X-15.
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- Peter Diamandis, who created the prize in 1996 and heads
the X Prize Foundation, pumped his fists and high-fived with cheering,
screamng spectators and teammates as he watched a giant video display
showing
SpaceShipOne rocketing into the black heavens above.
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- "It's blowing the record books away," Diamandis
shouted as he listened to mission control reports that put the ship's
altitude
first at 350,000 feet, then 364,000 and finally, though unofficially, at
368,000 feet, about 111 kilometers, or 70 miles, above Earth.
-
- "Today we make history," Diamandis said after
the ship was back on the runway. "Today the winners are the people
of the Earth. Today we go to the stars."
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- SpaceShipOne needed to reach 100 kilometers, or about
62.5 miles, twice within a two-week window to take the X Prize. The other
principal requirement was to carry a pilot and either two passengers or
their weight equivalent in ballast.
-
- Following its successful, if harrowing-looking, flight
last week to 337,500 feet, Rutan's American Mojave Aerospace team had to
get its ship across the edge of space one more time. Rutan chose Monday
because it's the anniversary of the first flight of the space age: the
launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik I on Oct. 4, 1957.
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- Last Wednesday, with veteran pilot Mike Melvill at the
controls, SpaceShipOne went into a still-unexplained roll as it left the
atmosphere. Both Melvill and Rutan say the motion -- 30 rolls in all --
was easily controlled. But the image of the spacecraft in a spiraling
ascent
made most spectators realize that what Rutan and his team have made look
easy is actually filled with potential danger. No one took the success
of Monday's flight for granted.
-
- SpaceShipOne and its carrier plane, White Knight, took
off at 6:48 a.m. After circling to an altitude of about 48,000 feet, the
spaceplane was released for launch about an hour later.
-
- A ruler-straight contrail climbed above the
mountain-rimmed
desert basin accompanied by screams of "Yeah!" and "Go for
it!"
-
- A giant video display in the VIP spectator section showed
SpaceShipOne rapidly climbing away from the Earth. Each new altitude
announced
was greeted with cheering and applause. The ship's engines burned for a
full 90 seconds and boosted the plane far, far beyond the minimum required
altitude. Then, one of Rutan's major innovations -- a cocking tail section
that turns the craft into a high-tech shuttlecock for a safe re-entry --
guided the ship through its high-speed return into the atmosphere. The
plane glided back to the runway at 8:13 after making a pass over the
airport
accompanied by its chase planes.
-
- Binnie, who had flown the first powered flight of
SpaceShipOne
in early testing, became the second astronaut created by Rutan's
program.
-
- At a ceremony after landing, he said, "Thank God
I live in a country where this kind of thing is possible."
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- Rutan, greeted by cries of "Burt! Burt! Burt!"
as he took the microphone, said he'd given Binnie some golf advice before
the pilot took off.
-
- "Use the driver, keep your head down, and swing
smooth," Rutan recalled telling Binnie. "I'd like to say to Brian
now, nice drive."
-
- Rutan promised that the SpaceShipOne program is just
the beginning of an ambitious and aggressive space tourist effort. And
he took a sharp dig at "that other space program" and the
aerospace
establishment he called "the nay-say people."
-
- "I think they're looking at each other now and
saying,
'We're screwed.'"
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