SpaceShipOne Wins the Ansari X Prize

On October 4, 2004, the experimental rocket plane SpaceShipOne climbed past an altitude of 100 kilometers above the California desert, securing the ten-million-dollar Ansari X Prize. The competition required a privately funded vehicle to reach that boundary twice within a two-week window while carrying the equivalent weight of three people, all while replacing no more than ten percent of the non-fuel weight between journeys. Flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a joint endeavor between aerospace designer Burt Rutan and investor Paul Allen, the suborbital craft demonstrated that non-governmental organizations could design and operate human spaceflight hardware.

Burt Rutan began developing concepts for the initiative as early as 1994, eventually focusing on an intensive three-year program titled Tier One. Paul Allen supplied roughly twenty-five million dollars to finance the enterprise without state subsidies. Rather than launching directly from the ground with immense boosters, Rutan designed a two-stage air-launch system. A custom twin-turbojet carrier aircraft, named White Knight, hauled SpaceShipOne up to approximately fourteen kilometers before releasing it to ignite its own rocket motor and begin an ascent toward the edge of space.