4/22/2003: Private space vehicle designed

[Undertoad]

Voila, the SpaceShipOne, or SS1 for short. It looks small, but it carries three people.



And there's the whole load of what will be needed to shoot that bugger into space, including the White Knight (WK), the catamaran-looking plane behind the SS1, and some humans to show you the scale of it all.

This is all designed by famed aircraft designer Burt Rutan. A lot more photos here of the whole thing. (Warning, those photos are HUGE.)

The concept is that the plane carries the SS1 as high as they'll go, 50,000 feet, and then the SS1 will separate and ignite the big-ass rocket to carry itself up to 62.5 miles. That's high enough so you're in space.

You don't spend much time there before heading back down; the whole trip is supposed to be only 30 minutes. You don't enter orbit - you just get way way up there.

If it works, it'll be the first private vehicle to make space and will collect a private $10M prize.

(I ain't going anywhere in that thing myself. It looks too much like a toy.)

Hat tip to 'spode again for pointing to it. full story here.