October 4, 2004: how a small team in the desert won the Ansari X Prize
The Ansari X Prize was simple: $10 million to the first private team to fly a reusable manned spacecraft to 100km altitude twice within two weeks. From 1996 to 2004 dozens tried; 26 teams formally registered. In Mojave, California, a small company called Scaled Composites — founded by Burt Rutan, the man who built Voyager (the first non-stop unrefueled flight around the world, 1986) — bet on a different approach. SpaceShipOne dropped from a carrier aircraft (White Knight), fired a hybrid rocket motor, coasted to 112km, and glided home. On June 21, 2004, test pilot Mike Melvill became the first private astronaut. On October 4, Brian Binnie flew the second qualifying flight. Mojave Air & Space Port — the country's first FAA-licensed inland spaceport — went from desert oddity to the future of human spaceflight in 79 days. SpaceShipOne hangs in the Smithsonian. The hangar is still here. The next ones are coming.