Ready for take off for the world's first private manned space flight!

Towards the stars. It`s not a good old science fiction fantasy story. According to press releases and other information on the website Scaled Composites (www.scaled.com ), a privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world's first commercial manned space vehicle.

Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen (who started Microsoft together with Bill Gates) and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth's atmosphere.

SpaceShipOne will rocket to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. 135 people come from everywhere to the Mojave Desert just to build weird airplanes! If successful, it will demonstrate that the space frontier is finally open to private enterprise.

The pilot (to be announced at a later date) of the up-coming June sub-orbital space flight will become the first person to earn astronaut wings in a non-government sponsored vehicle, and the first private civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere.

To reach space, a carrier aircraft, the White Knight, lifts SpaceShipOne from the runway. An hour later, after climbing to approximately 50,000 feet altitude just east of Mojave, the White Knight releases the spaceship into a glide. The spaceship pilot then fires his rocket motor for about 80 seconds, reaching Mach 3 in a vertical climb. During the pull-up and climb, the pilot encounters G-forces three to four times the gravity of the earth.

SpaceShipOne then coasts up to its goal height of 100 km (62 miles) before falling back to earth. The pilot experiences a weightless environment for more than three minutes and, like orbital space travellers, sees the black sky and the thin blue atmospheric line on the horizon. The pilot (actually a new astronaut!) then configures the craft's wing and tail into a high-drag configuration. This provides a "care-free" atmospheric entry by slowing the spaceship in the upper atmosphere and automatically aligning it along the flight path.

Upon re-entry, the pilot reconfigures the ship back to a normal glider, and then spends 15 to 20 minutes gliding back to earth, touching down like an airplane on the same runway from which he took off. The June flight will be flown solo, but SpaceShipOne is equipped with three seats and is designed for missions that include pilot and two passengers.

Based on the success of the June space flight attempt, SpaceShipOne will later compete for the Ansari X Prize, an international competition to create a reusable aircraft that can launch three passengers into sub-orbital space, return them safely home, then repeat the launch within two weeks with the same vehicle.

The Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions are producing RUTAN'S RACE FOR SPACE (wt), a world premiere television special that documents the entire process of the historic effort to create the first privately-funded spacecraft. From design to flight testing to the moments of the actual launch and return, the special takes viewers behind-the-scenes for the complete, inside story of this historic aerospace milestone. RUTAN'S RACE FOR SPACE will be broadcast later this year.

Is this the beginning of a new era in the tourist industry? We look forward to the take-off and hope the best. This event could be the breakthrough for a new kind of tourism in the future.

Stein Morten Lund, 20 June 2004

Additional information

Scaled Composites is an aerospace and speciality composites development company located in Mojave, California (about 80 miles north of Los Angeles. It was founded in 1982.

Historic Space Launch Attempt Scheduled for June 21. Paul G. Allen and Burt Rutan announce plans for firstnon-government, privately funded manned space flight.

For more information click on the link www.scaled.com.