The Sky's the Limit

INVENTION OF THE YEAR Shepard’s trailblazing journey. In June it became the first privately funded spacecraft. In October it The Sky’s clinched the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the first such craft to travel to space twice in two weeks. Thanks to the backing of two starry-eyed billion- The Limit aires, SpaceShipOne is set to become the first in a Why the amazing SpaceShipOne is new line of space-tourism craft coming in 2007. “It’s Time’s Invention of the Year a spaceship that fits in your two-car garage, and you can take it to space By CHRIS TAYLOR every other day,” says X Prize founder Peter Diamandis. “That’s pretty cool.” hen the first american We agree. For solving the problems flew into space in 1961, Burt of suborbital flight and re-entry with WRutan was a 17-year-old col- ingenious design, for boldly going lege freshman. Listening to news of where nasa now fears to tread and Alan Shepard’s groundbreaking sub- returning without a scratch, but most orbital flight on the radio, Rutan was of all for reigniting the moon-shot- euphoric. He too hoped to go into era dream of zero-gravity for every- space one day—and was disappointed one, SpaceShipOne is Time’s Coolest that a cautious nasa had allowed the Soviets to Invention of 2004. beat the U.S. to the prize. “We could have had the Concerned that SpaceShipOne was destined first man in space,” Rutan recalls, “and we sent a for nothing more than the National Air and Space monkey instead.” Museum, Rutan enlisted another aeronautics The possibilities back then seemed limitless, enthusiast and billionaire, Virgin’s Richard Branson. and it was easy for Rutan’s generation to imagine Over dinner in Mojave, they sketched out a vision they would all get to taste zero-gravity one day. It of suborbital and orbital space tourism over the didn’t work out that way. After nasa reached the next 75 years. Branson was instantly won over. He moon in 1969, its focus shifted to unmanned ordered five larger versions of SpaceShipOne with probes, orbital experiments and a costly low-orbit seats for five passengers and a pilot. shuttle system. The imagined future of Everyman Rutan knows that to sell tickets, he must make as astronaut evaporated. This year, more than four flights “at least a hundred times” safer than space decades after Shepard’s flight, only two Americans travel has been so far. After all, of the 430 humans have made the jump into space from U.S. soil—both who have flown into space, 18 died there. “You launched not by nasa but by Rutan’s tiny company, can’t have an airline that kills 4% of its passengers,” known for build-your-own-airplane kits. says Rutan. Rutan designed their craft, SpaceShipOne, a But prospective passengers don’t seem worried. vehicle as improbable as it is revolutionary. The size Branson already has a waiting list of more than of a small biplane, SpaceShipOne is a shell of 7,000 people who are willing to pay the $190,000 woven graphite glued onto a rocket motor that price for a suborbital flight. “This isn’t just a pipe runs on laughing gas and rubber. The nose is punc- dream,” says Branson. “We will get this to the point tuated by portholes, like an ocean liner. Inside, where thousands of people can go into space.” ■ the critical instrument is a Ping-Pong ball decorated with a smiley face and attached to the cabin with a Questions piece of string, which goes slack when the pilot 1. Why was SpaceShipOne selected as Time’s reaches the zero-gravity of suborbital space. Invention of the Year for 2004? Despite its Flash Gordon looks and unorthodox 2. What issue does Burt Rutan plan to address in design, SpaceShipOne was more than able to match order to sell tickets for future trips into space? time, november 29, 2004 29.

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