A FLIGHT on 13 May by Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne in Mojave, California, broke several records for an independently funded space vehicle: altitude (64,000 metres), speed (Mach 2.5) and rocket engine firing time (55 seconds). And that was just the start.
Rutan’s company, Scaled Composites, is odds-on favourite to win the renamed Ansari X prize of $10 million, perhaps within the next couple of months or so. The company is poised to announce the date of its attempt to place the first private craft into space – defined as an altitude of 100 kilometres. That feat would also make its pilot the world’s first commercial…
