The biggest hurdle with SpaceShipOne was simply coming up with a safe reentry mechanism.
Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne is the sole DIY rocket to put a human into space.
Burt Rutan, the brains behind SpaceShipOne, and Paul Allen, its moneybags, are not alone.
But such a shift occurred on October 4th when SpaceShipOne reached space for the second time in six days.
Eventually, he wants SpaceShipOne displayed alongside another one of his airplanes, Voyager, which flew non-stop around the world without refuelling in 1986.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | 'No experiments' for SpaceShipOne
Before SpaceShipOne is retired, however, it has one very important mission left.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | 'No experiments' for SpaceShipOne
Financial backer of SpaceShipOne, first to launch private flight into suborbital space.
The carrier vehicle will ferry suborbital craft SpaceShipTwo, modeled after Ansari X Prize winner SpaceShipOne, 50, 000 feet in the sky before releasing it.
SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, who is beginning work on Virgin's space fleet, has promised to ride along with Branson on the first flight.
It was about a year ago, when I saw SpaceShipOne and the mother ship, Eve, named after my mother, coming out in the Mohave.
His SpaceShipOne has flown to the top of the atmosphere and last year became the first privately built aircraft to break the sound barrier.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Space future: Race for the X-Prize
Mr Rutan is the brain behind SpaceShipOne, which in June became the first privately funded spaceship, reaching the edge of space on a sub-orbital hop.
SpaceShipOne is a developmental vehicle and will not offer commercial rides.
The paradigm shift, which began with SpaceShipOne's first flight into space in June, is away from government-funded space programmes to a dynamic bevy of private efforts.
The ultimate promise of reusable craft like SpaceShipOne is a vastly reduced launch cost, greater ease of preparing a flight and the prospect of opening space for tourism.
In 2004, he financed the first private passenger spacecraft, SpaceShipOne.
One group preparing to sell suborbital flights is Virgin Galactic, whose parent company is partnering with California-based Scaled Composites to develop SpaceShipTwo, the successor to 2004's Ansari X Prize-winning SpaceShipOne.
CNN: Private space pioneers: We're inheritors of Apollo legacy
It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan and his colleagues to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
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The idea of private space travel as the next frontier for adventurers has gained enormously popularity within the last decade, particularly after SpaceShipOne, financed by Microsoft co-founder PaulAllenPaul Allen, won the coveted Ansari X Prize in 2004.
You have to fast-forward all the way to October 4th, 2004, the moment that pilot Brian Binnie crested at an altitude of 112km in SpaceShipOne, to find a similarly important moment in the history of private space flight.
If there is a boom coming, the fuse was lit by the 2004 flight of SpaceShipOne, a reusable space vehicle built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) co-founder Paul Allen .
Another major milestone for the industry has been a growing interest and investment from entrepreneurs like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who financed the development of SpaceShipOne, winner of the Ansari X Prize, and British billionaire Richard Branson, founder of the space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.
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