On Wednesday, SpaceShipOne completed its first of two required flights to win the $10 million X Prize. The X Prize was set up to jump start the space tourism industry and provided a handsome sum to whoever can create a spacecraft that can:
- Privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry 3 people to 100 km (62.5 mi)
- Returns safely to Earth
- Repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks
The flight of SpaceShipOne on Wednesday was its first flight in the X Prize race. It lifted of from the Mojave Desert in California and reached an altitude of 337,500 ft. The next flight is tentatively scheduled for this coming Monday Oct. 4th.
You can check out a video of the flight here. There is quite a bit more information about the X Prize and the different teams involved at the X Prize Site. Who knows what’ll happen after someone wins the prize. Maybe we’ll be a step or two closer to taking a quick trip to space… which sounds like fun to me!
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