“"Until 21 June 2004, every human who had travelled beyond ..."”
Until 21 June 2004, every human who had travelled beyond the atmosphere had done so aboard a government rocket. That morning, test pilot Mike Melvill guided SpaceShipOne from the belly of the White Knight carrier over the Mojave Desert, ignited its hybrid rocket motor, and arced to 100.124 kilometres—becoming the first privately funded human spaceflight in history. The spacecraft, designed by the legendary Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites and bankrolled by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc., carried a secret weapon: the “feathered” reentry system, in which the twin tail booms and rear wing section folded upward 70 degrees to create stable drag and a hands-off descent. After a hair-raising control scare on that first flight, Rutan’s team resolved the issues in time for a second qualifying flight on 4 October 2004. Pilot Brian Binnie reached 112 kilometres, winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize for a privately financed, reusable craft capable of carrying three people to space twice within two weeks. SpaceShipOne was retired immediately, donated to the Smithsonian, and its technology licensed to Richard Branson to create Virgin Galactic. The Mojave Aerospace Ventures team had proven that the final frontier was no longer the exclusive province of nations.
The engineering principles pioneered here—Until 21 June 2004, every human who had travelled beyond the atmosphere had done—are still embedded in the aircraft you fly today.