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SpaceShipOne set to begin bid for X Prize

A team of entrepreneurs will try to blast a rocket plane into space Wednesday in the first of two flights required to win the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million award aiming to boost commercial space travel.

SpaceShipOne, the creation of Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, will be lifted off an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., at 6 a.m. PT with the help of a carrier plane. The vehicle, capable of traveling three times the speed of sound, will then fire its rocket and head toward zero gravity — about 62 miles above the Earth.

"We're all very confident," Rutan said Tuesday, quickly adding, "Anything can happen, though. ... The fact that this has gone so well — I pinch myself. I wouldn't have believed we'd be here today."

X Prize rules say that a team must send an occupied, reusable craft into space twice in two weeks. SpaceShipOne is scheduled for another flight on Monday, five days after the first launch. Rutan declined to disclose the pilot's name.

A non-profit group called the X Prize Foundation is offering the $10 million prize to encourage the development of a commercial space industry. The prize has gone unclaimed for eight years, but SpaceShipOne is considered the most serious contender yet.

Full Story @ USATODAY.com

Posted by Muddy at September 29, 2004 09:40 AM | TrackBack