This Day In History, 2004: SpaceShipOne

[mabfan]

One year ago today, pilot Mike Melvill of Tier One made history by piloting SpaceShipOne into outer space, the first privately-funded human spaceflight. A few months later, SpaceShipOne made two more flights into outer space within a fourteen-day period, winning the Ansari X-Prize.

Comments

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Wheee!!!

I'm still giddy when I think about that.

[fontosaurus.livejournal.com]

Has it been a year already?

Okay, now we need the Ansari Mars Colony Prize.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

An Ansari Mars Colony Prize would be a fantastic idea. The only problem is that I doubt it's economically feasible.

[fontosaurus.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhh, details, details.

Somehow, I suspect Rutan, Allen, etc., spent more than $10 million on SpaceShipOne.

It's probably more about bragging rights.

[seborn.livejournal.com]

Speaking of nifty proof-of-concept flights, you know about the solar sail they're supposed to launch into orbit today from a Russian sub, right?

http://www.planetary.org/solarsail

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I had indeed heard, and am following the story with interest...

(Note to self - File it away for next year's This Day in History.)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

That was a year ago????

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, it was a year ago.