Commercial spacecraft returns safely from edge of space By MARK CARREAU Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle SEE IT NOW Video: SpaceShipOne soars into edge of space MOJAVE, Calif. -- The world's first privately developed rocket ship soared into the fringes of space early today, opening a door to commercial space passsenger travel and earning astronaut wings for corporate astronaut Mike Melvill. Launched from the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center northeast of Los Angeles, SpaceShipOne climbed to an altitude of 62.5 miles in the restricted air space west of the airport. The 90-minute roundtrip, including Melvill's breathtaking sprint into space marked the first time an astronaut who is not part of a government space agency like NASA or those operated by the Russians or Chinese has crossed the threshold of space. Backers of the privately funded, seven-year effort hope the mission will encourage a new era of ticketed space passenger travel. "Yeehaw!" yelled a triumphant Melvill, a 62-year-old grandfather, as his blunt-nosed spacecraft rolled to a landing. "I feel great." The SpaceShipOne rocket plane was hauled aloft from the Mojave airport in the clutches of a carrier aircraft, the White Knight. After reaching at altitude of nearly 50,000 feet, the rocket plane with Melvill at the controls dropped away, gliding for several seconds. Melvill then armed and ignited a rocket motor that pushed the 28-foot-long SpaceShipOne into a steep climb. Once he climbed through an altitude of 50 miles, Melvill met the criteria of an astronaut. The diminuitive test pilot called his view of the Los Angeles basin from his momentary high perch a religious experience. "It was a mind blowing experience; an awesome thing really," he said after his safe return from sub-orbital space. Before he crawled into the white spaceship decorated with blue stars, Melvill received a kiss from his wife, Sally. "I'm very very flattered to have been chosen," said Melvill, who serves as general manager and chief test pilot for Scaled Composites, the Mojave company that developed SpaceShipOne. "I just got the short straw, the long straw, whichever it is." The effort to launch the first private spacecraft with a civilian astronaut represents the work of Burt Rutan, president of Scaled Composites, a gifted aerospace engineer who designed the Voyager aircraft that circled the globe on a single tank of fuel in 1986. The test program has been bankrolled by Paul G. Allen, Seattle philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft. The SpaceShipOne team is heavily favored to win the Ansari X-Prize, a $10 million purse that will go to the first private spacecraft capable of carrying three people to an altitude of at least 62.5 miles twice within two weeks. Scale Composites is one of 26 teams from seven countries registered for the seven-year old competition. Currently, the prize is scheduled to expire on Jan. 1. "I had my heart in my throat when I saw the launch," said Allen, who has poured more than $20 million into the project. Since the first flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, space travel has not matured beyond the control of Russia, the United States and the newcomer China. "I'm absolutely delighted," said Rutan, who choked back a tear as he and Allen greeted Melvill on the runway. '"I just can't tell you how pleased I am." In several ways, today's launch resembled the May 5, 1961, launching of the Mercury capsule and Redstone rocket combination that turned NASA's Alan B. Shepard Jr. into America's first astronaut. After liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Shepard's capsule rose to an altitude of 116 miles before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean 302 miles downrange. NASA launched a second suborbital Mercury mission with astronaut Gus Grissom before advancing its work to orbital missions and a series of flights to the moon with the Apollo astronauts. SpaceShipOne has been under development for seven years, though efforts to carry out a flight test program are just three years old. Today's was the fourth powered flight of SpaceShipOne, dating back to Dec 17, when it became the first civilian flying machine to break the sound barrier. During a May 13 flight, Melvill reached an altitude of just over 40 miles in SpaceShipOne before gliding safely back to Earth. Hardly a household name, Melvill was born in Durban, South Africa. He immigrated to the United States from England more than a quarter century ago and is now an American citizen with four grandchildren. Of the rocketship's dozen previous powered and gliding test flights dating back to May 2003, Melvill has flown eight of them. His background includes more than 6,400 hours of flight time in aircraft ranging from fighter jets to helicopters and flying crop dusters. Thousands of onlookers crowded on the Mojave airport grounds for today's flight, arriving in motor homes, pickup trucks and family cars. Among them was Ray Gaulden, a 66-year-old retired machinest from Pamona, Calif. "It just seemed interesting, just about as good as the big show, the space shuttle," said Gaulden, who was accompanied his friend, Ruben Ravizu of Whittier, Calif., a 62-year-old custodian. Until a few years ago, nearby Edwards Air Force Base, home to many of the military's best test pilots, was a landing site for NASA's space shuttle. "I'd like to see us get into space," said Gaulden, nodding to his friend. "I think it's time that private industry got into this. I bet they could do it a lot cheaper." "Clearly, there is an enormous pent up hunger to fly in space, not just dream about it," Rutan told reporters before the flight., "We do want our children to go to the planets, and we're willing to make breakthrough by taking risks." link
