This is a cool story on NPR about the SpaceShipOne supersonic flight on the anniversary of the Wright Brothers Flight.
This week, while President Bush and John Travolta were honoring the Wright Brothers under the rainy skies of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, George Whitesides was in Mojave, California, watching a new chapter in history open. Whitesides is the director a space education project called "Permission to Dream." I was there on a rumor – the rumor that aviation pioneer Burt Rutan might test his brand new rocket vehicle, SpaceShipOne, on the 100th anniversary of powered flight. Rutan is best known for designing the Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world without refueling. But now he has set his sights higher, on the X PRIZE, a $10 million dollar contest for the first private craft to take humans into space. SpaceShipOne is his entry. So at 6:30 am, I found myself on the flightline of the Mojave airport, the home base of Rutan’s company, shivering with a small band of fellow space buffs. Within an hour, our shivering was rewarded, and SpaceShipOne rolled regally out onto the tarmac. It is hard to describe the feeling of seeing this amazing craft. It’s actually two crafts, mated together: the carrier vehicle, dubbed the White Knight, looks like a Star Wars fighter, while SpaceShipOne – a pointed pod with stars painted on its nose -- hangs underneath, to be carried aloft to its designated release altitude. This beautiful, elegant system, its twin engines whistling with caged power, wheeled right past our observation station, and the small crowd let out a whoop. I think I even saw someone in the cockpit wave a thumbs up sign out the window. We heard the magic words, “White Knight, you are cleared for takeoff”, and the whine of the engines grew to a roar. And there, before my very eyes, a private spaceship took off into the morning sky. It felt like the moment that all the kids since Apollo had been waiting for – a personal spaceship made for you and me.
Very, very cool.