ON 21 June, SpaceShipOne kissed the edge of space. In doing so, it became the first privately funded craft to carry a person into space, and its pilot Mike Melvill became the first to earn astronaut wings while flying a civilian vehicle.
The thousands who witnessed the flight got a glimpse of a commercial future for space flight. SpaceShipOne is the first fully reusable space vehicle designed for routine, regular flights. The hope is that it will lead to a sharp fall in the cost of space exploration and research, opening up new vistas for both science and commerce. The…
