Jun 21 2004
From The Space Library
The company Scaled Composites launched the first privately developed piloted vehicle to travel beyond Earth's atmosphere. The vehicle, called SpaceShipOne, departed from Mojave Airport in California at 6:45 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST), attached to another aircraft. Upon reaching an altitude of 46,000 feet (8.7 miles or 14 kilometers), the aircraft released SpaceShipOne. Propelled by a fuel containing rubber and nitrous oxide ~ laughing gas ~ SpaceShipOne eventually attained an altitude of 328,491 feet (62 miles or 100 kilometers), achieving suborbital spaceflight. After SpaceShipOne had remained in suborbital flight for nearly 31/2 minutes, the vehicle's pilot Michael W. Melvill ~ who became the first civilian astronaut with this flight ~ safely landed the craft at Mojave Airport. [[Burt Rutan]], the founder of Scaled Composites, had designed SpaceShipOne, and Microsoft cofounder Paul G. Allen had financed the project. (Peter Pae, “Private Spaceflight Is a Public Success,” Los Angeles Times, 22 June 2004; Scaled Composites, “SpaceShipOne Makes History: First Private Manned Mission to Space,” news release, 21 June 2004.
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