SpaceShipOne gliding after having been released at high altitude by its carrier craft, White Knight.
A TICKET TO RIDE
In June 2004 the first privately funded spacecraft went into space. It had been designed and developed by Scaled Composites, an adventurous and well-respected aerospace design company that had used the genius of Bert Rutan to conceive many remarkable aircraft.
SpaceShipOne was taken to an altitude of 15,240 meters (50,000 feet) from where it detached from its carrier aircraft and fired a so-called hybrid rocket motor to take it straight up to an altitude of just over 62 miles (100 km), officially entering space. The pilot, Mike Melvill, 64, became the world’s first commercial astronaut. After touchdown he told the cheering crowd:
The flight was spectacular. Looking out that window, seeing the white clouds in the LA Basin, it looked like snow on the ground.
During the dramatic flight, the craft had surprised him with its “little victory roll,” and he had to shut down the engines 11 seconds prematurely:
Did I plan the roll? I’d like to say I did but I didn’t. You’re extremely busy at that point. Probably I stepped on something too quickly and caused the roll but it’s nice to do a roll at the top of the climb.
Two others, Peter Siebold and Brian Binnie, have so far also flown SpaceShipOne to space. Others will follow soon, when its successor SpaceShipTwo carries passengers for $150,00 each on a suborbital flight from late 2009. Some 48 years after Alan Shepard rode a Redstone rocket on a suborbital flight to become the first American in space, it is now possible to buy a ticket to do the same thing. By August 2008, a total of 484 people had become astronauts. Soon there will be hundreds more, then thousands.
SpaceShipOne gliding after having been released at high altitude by its carrier craft, White Knight.
In late 2007 NASA issued a request for applications for a new class of astronaut. For the first time in decades the successful candidates will not study to fly aboard the Space Shuttle. Instead they will train, for the first time since the late 1960s, to walk upon the Moon.
To paraphrase the words of the American poet Walt Whitman, they will venture where mariners have not yet dared to go, and risk the ship, themselves, and all to get there. Like those before them, they will sometimes cheer and sometimes cry. Somewhere, a young child is growing up who will not only become captivated by our future voyages to the Moon but will also cast their imagination even further. At this very moment, the first person to set foot upon Mars is dreaming of astronauts.