Private spacecraft blast offs June 21

[desdemona]

Private spacecraft blast offs June 21

By Leonard David

SPACE.com

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 Posted: 11:40 AM EDT (1540 GMT)

(SPACE.com) -- A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world's first commercial manned space vehicle.

The pilot of the craft, still to be announced, 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.

That's the word on Wednesday from Scaled Composites in the Mojave, California desert -- designer and builder of SpaceShipOne. The announcement is the first time the group has pre-announced a high-altitude run of its piloted rocketship.

Investor and philanthropist Paul Allen and aviation technologist Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the Earth's atmosphere.

read the entire article here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/02/p...pace/index.html

[DudeAsInCool]

Me is off to Vulcan Batcave...catchas latas

[Shawn]

That's pretty cool. There is no good reason that only governments should have access to space. I wish them a safe trip.