Today’s announcement came after SpaceShipOne completed a May 13th, 2004 test flight in which pilot Mike Melvill reached a height of 211,400 feet (approximately 40 miles), the highest altitude ever reached by a non-government aerospace program.

          Sub-orbital space flight refers to a mission that flies out of the atmosphere but does not reach the speeds needed to sustain continuous orbiting of the earth. The view from a sub-orbital flight is similar to being in orbit, but the cost and risks are far less.

          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.

“Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard’s epic flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive Government efforts. By contrast, our program involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable,” said Burt Rutan. “Without the entrepreneur approach, space access would continue to be out of reach for ordinary citizens. The SpaceShipOne flights will change all that and encourage others to usher in a new, low-cost era in space travel.”           SpaceShipOne was designed by Rutan and his research team at the California-based aerospace company, Scaled Composites. Rutan made aviation news in 1986 by developing the Voyager, the only aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without refueling.

          “To succeed takes more than the work of designers and builders”, Rutan said, “The vision, the will, the commitment and the courage to direct the program is the most difficult hurdle. We are very fortunate to have the financial support and the confidence of a visionary like Paul Allen to make this effort possible.”

          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 travelers, 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.

          Unlike any previous manned space mission, the June flight will allow the public to view, up close, the takeoff and landing as well as the overhead rocket boost to space. This will be an historic and unique spectator opportunity. Information for the general public on attending the event is available at www.scaled.com.

          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.

The Future of Space Flight Is In Your Hands:

President Bush proposed on Wednesday (1/14/04) to develop a new spacecraft to carry Americans back to the moon by 2015, and to establish a long-term base there as an eventual springboard to Mars and beyond. Bush would withdraw the United States from the International Space Station by 2010 and retire the space shuttle fleet at about the same time. Details of his proposal were released by the White House in advance of a speech by the president at NASA headquarters.

If you are interested in learning more you can check out the website at http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/news/062104.htm, just copy and paste to your browser window.

Bush wants to use the moon as a base for more ambitious missions to Mars and into the deeper reaches of the solar system, the White House said. An extended human presence on the moon "will enable astronauts to develop new technologies and harness the moon's abundant resources to allow manned exploration of more challenging environments," the White House said in a prepared statement. "The experience and knowledge gained on the moon will serve as a foundation for human missions beyond the moon, beginning with Mars," the statement said. The moon has one-sixth the gravitational field of Earth, so moon-based aircraft could launch from there more cheaply.

          "The president's vision affirms our nation's commitment to manned space exploration," the White House statement said. "It gives NASA a new focus and clear objectives. It will be affordable and sustainable while maintaining the highest levels of safety." Bush proposed a modest increase in spending for the new venture — $1 billion in new spending over five years. Bush would also shift $11 billion in federal money from other NASA programs to make way for the program.

          Probes, landers and other unmanned spacecraft would explore the lunar surface beginning no later than 2008 to research and prepare for future human exploration. NASA would also develop and build a new "Crew Exploration Vehicle" to ferry people first to the International Space Station after the shuttles are retired, and then to the moon, no later than 2015. The goal, the White House said, would be humans "living and working there for increasingly extended periods." White House officials said the human "presence" would not necessarily be a permanent base.

At the start of an election year, the White House cast the next envisioned generation of space travel as affordable and useful to average Americans who might be skeptical about such a mission at a time of record budget deficits. The administration's fact sheet offered a list of benefits from previous space missions: "Space exploration has yielded advances in communications, weather forecasting, electronics and countless other fields," the White House said. Examples included CAT scanners, MRI’s, kidney dialysis machines, programmable heart pacemakers, satellite communications advances.

          Bush is asking for a $1 billion boost to NASA's budget over five years to fund the start of a new American campaign in space. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said NASA spending, in the short term, would constitute less than 1 percent of the federal budget, but he would not provide a total price tag for the venture. McClellan suggested that other countries, perhaps including Russia, would share in the project and help bear the costs. "Russia would have some important contributions," McClellan said. Bush also formed a new panel, the Commission on the Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration Policy, to advise NASA on the implementation of his ideas.

Written by: PAUL RECER, AP Science Writer


Here are some links if you're interested in learning more:

Official Government site: with transcript and video of the speech Mars Exploration Mission Home Page (Official Nasa Home page) Site dedicated completly to current and future missions to mars.