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On October 4, 2004, the experimental space passenger plane SpaceShipOne performed the first private suborbital space flight, reaching an altitude of over 110 km.
The machine was developed and managed by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and Scaled Composites, a company owned by legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan. The project is worth $25 million, and the entire work on the space plane's production process took three years.
After several test flights, the aircraft won the prestigious Ansari X Prize in 2004, awarded to the first private organization to successfully launch an aircraft into space twice within two weeks. The model was immediately retired, and the team began work on its successor, SpaceShipTwo, which is still used for space tourism today.
SpaceShipOne reaches a maximum speed of Mach 3.09 (3,518 km/h) and has a range of 65 kilometers. Its wingspan is 8.05 meters and its length is 8.53 meters. The crew consists of a single pilot.
The date of October 4 is probably best known in the history of space exploration with the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth built by the USSR – Sputnik 1. But the successful implementation of the first private space flights, which were carried out by SpaceShipOne in 2004, are no less important events. The success of SpaceShipOne is a harbinger of the increasingly large role that private initiative will begin to play in space exploration.
Just a few years later, Elon Musk built on this success and launched the first privately funded rocket to reach Earth orbit. Today, his company SpaceX is the largest manufacturer of aerospace rockets and vehicles in the world.
Today, the SpaceShipOne space plane is stored at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, USA.
“ We need cheap and accessible space transportation to inspire young people, to show them that they can live their dreams, set big goals, and be the ones who will lead us all into a future of progress, discovery, and fun.”
- Burt Rattan, receiving the Ansari X Prize
Image source: Wikipedia.org
