First X prize flight successful
SpaceShipOne, one of 26 rockets competing to win a $10 million prize, touched down in California on Wednesday, making it the first contender to complete the first task in the competition. The Ansari X prize was established in 1996 in the hopes of spurning the development of a commercial space tourism industry. The trophy will be awarded to the team that flies three people in one ship 100km into the atmosphere, lands them safely, and then repeats the same trip within 14 days. SpaceShipOne, bankrolled with $26 million by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, was also the first craft to reach space on June 21. But that time the rocket carried only the pilot, so the flight did not count towards the prize. Virgin founder Richard Branson announced on September 27 that he would license the rocket’s technology, with ambitions of creating a fleet of spacecraft modelled after SpaceShipOne. Should Branson be successful, tickets for passengers would cost an estimated $200,000. There are two Canadian teams in the competition, the Canadian Arrow and the da Vinci Project.
-Zoe Cormier
Source: Nature
