On Sat, 15 May 2004 12:06:39 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote in Message-Id:
. net:


Manned suborbital spaceflight has been done before. The X Prize requires
that it be done with a privately financed flight vehicle.



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AVflash Volume 10, Number 21a -- May 17, 2004
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"FIRST" PRIVATE MANNED SPACEFLIGHT A SUCCESS
Since we've been visiting space for more than 40 years it's almost
hard to believe that this kind of "first" was still open. Last
Thursday, Mike Melvill went into the record books as the first pilot
to take a privately funded aircraft into space. The 62-year-old test
pilot rode Scaled Composites' rocket plane SpaceShipOne to an altitude
of 40 miles (211,400 feet) after being dropped from its mother ship,
the White Knight, over the high desert just east of Los Angeles. He
then glided the unique craft to a landing at Mojave Airport. "Watching
the blue sky go completely black was the highlight of my career,"
Melvill told reporters.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#187306

--

Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,