SpaceShipOne made the first private crewed spaceflight
On this day · 21 June 2004
On June 21, 2004, a sleek experimental rocket plane carried a single pilot past the edge of space without a dime of government money.
Until June 21, 2004, human spaceflight had been the exclusive business of national governments. That morning SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and funded entirely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, changed that. Carried aloft beneath the White Knight mothership, it dropped, lit its hybrid rocket motor, and climbed steeply over Mojave, California.
Pilot Mike Melvill rode the small craft to roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles), just clearing the Kármán line that marks the boundary of space. The whole flight lasted about 24 minutes, and Melvill became the first person to earn commercial astronaut wings.
With SpaceShipOne, private enterprise crossed a threshold previously reserved for state programs.
The flight was a proof of concept. Later that year the same vehicle won the $10 million Ansari X Prize by reaching space twice within two weeks, and it now hangs in the Smithsonian, a hinge point for today’s commercial space industry.
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