Outside Hangar 7, the desert and sky stretch as far as you can see, broken only by the distant Tehachapi Mountains and the occasional Joshua tree.
As a female voice coos, "Welcome to space," six passengers in skintight spacesuits unbuckle their seatbelts and somersault in zero gravity, occasionally peeking back at Earth through the private spaceship's large portholes.
A third person died Friday from an explosion at a rocket test pad operated by a private company in California's southern Mojave Desert, according to the nursing supervisor at Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield.
An explosion at an airport home to Scaled Composites -- the builder of the first private manned rocket to reach space -- killed two people and left four seriously hurt Thursday, a Kern County Fire Department official says.
Jim Benson's ship is called the Dream Chaser, and here's the dream he's chasing: a 50 percent profit margin on revenue of $200 million by 2015 from putting tourists into suborbital space.
A mere three years after Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne skimmed the edge of space to capture the $10-million Ansari X Prize, more than half a dozen companies are furiously building and testing spacecraft designed to take paying passengers on suborbital journeys and beyond.
Space tourism is being packaged as the ultimate trip -- almost as an extension of a normal flight but with incredible views, the experience of weightlessness and supersonic speeds.
It has a jet engine's roar but not the accompanying whine -- just an ear-shattering thunder. And the airplane is far too small, like a Volkswagen with a semi's air horn.
1789: The U.S. War Department establish a regular U.S. army with a strength of several hundred men.
The Genesis-1 module orbiting the Earth not only transmits its temperature, integrity, power levels and overall health -- it also signals entrepreneurial zeal and private sector spunk.
Outside Hangar 7, the desert and sky stretch as far as you can see, broken only by the distant Tehachapi Mountains and the occasional Joshua tree.
As a female voice coos, "Welcome to space," six passengers in skintight spacesuits unbuckle their seatbelts and somersault in zero gravity, occasionally peeking back at Earth through the private spaceship's large portholes.
A third person died Friday from an explosion at a rocket test pad operated by a private company in California's southern Mojave Desert, according to the nursing supervisor at Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield.
An explosion at an airport home to Scaled Composites -- the builder of the first private manned rocket to reach space -- killed two people and left four seriously hurt Thursday, a Kern County Fire Department official says.
Jim Benson's ship is called the Dream Chaser, and here's the dream he's chasing: a 50 percent profit margin on revenue of $200 million by 2015 from putting tourists into suborbital space.
A mere three years after Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne skimmed the edge of space to capture the $10-million Ansari X Prize, more than half a dozen companies are furiously building and testing spacecraft designed to take paying passengers on suborbital journeys and beyond.
Space tourism is being packaged as the ultimate trip -- almost as an extension of a normal flight but with incredible views, the experience of weightlessness and supersonic speeds.
It has a jet engine's roar but not the accompanying whine -- just an ear-shattering thunder. And the airplane is far too small, like a Volkswagen with a semi's air horn.
1789: The U.S. War Department establish a regular U.S. army with a strength of several hundred men.
The Genesis-1 module orbiting the Earth not only transmits its temperature, integrity, power levels and overall health -- it also signals entrepreneurial zeal and private sector spunk.
By now you'll know whether Elon Musk is the latest hero of the high frontier or still just the co-founder of PayPal. On Feb. 10, the day after this magazine went to press, Musk's latest company -- ...
If you want to view the entrepreneurial future of space travel, start in Los Angeles. Drive 100 miles northeast until you reach sun-baked Mojave (population 3,800). Head to the local airport. Don't...
Entrepreneurs have always driven our technical progress--and, as a result, our economy. They tend to be more innovative, more willing to take risks, and more excited about solving difficult problem...
If you want to view the entrepreneurial future of space travel, start in Los Angeles. Drive 100 miles northeast until you reach sun-baked Mojave (population 3,800). Head to the local airport. Don't expect to see launchpads or fancy command centers--there are none to be found. Yet history is being made here: In 2004 the Federal Aviation Administration certified Mojave Airport as a civilian spaceport. Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, has its headquarters near the runways, and it was from here that his SpaceShipOne became the first private spacecraft to carry a passenger beyond the stratosphere.
Unless you're a villain in a big-screen thriller, power in and of itself is not necessarily the final objective. Sure, Lee Scott swings his Wal-Mart weight around with the best of 'em, but who grow...
Forget the Russians and the Americans. The new space race is between the guys from Virgin Atlantic, Amazon.com, and PayPal.
CNN talks to SpaceShipOne designer and aviation pioneer Burt Rutan about the future of space tourism.
Ticket to ride commuter flights to the edge of space may not be too far off -- with spaceliners departing several spaceports here in the United States.
Flying from horizon to horizon, Steve Fossett completed the first solo, nonstop flight around-the-world without refueling on Thursday, landing gracefully in Kansas at 2:49 pm ET.
Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett will attempt to cross the Pacific Ocean and reach Hawaii despite a fuel shortage detected by mission control early Wednesday.
The record-setting, privately-built suborbital rocket plane -- SpaceShipOne -- is headed for a landing at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C.
SpaceShipOne achieved its most spectacular flight yet, climbing to an altitude of 377,591 feet (71 1/2 miles) to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize on Monday.
Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne will attempt suborbital flights on Sept. 29 and Oct. 4. If both are successful, Rutan's Scaled Composites team will claim the $10 million X-Prize for the first privately f...
A Californian-based team is halfway to claiming a $10 million prize by putting a privately financed manned craft into sub-orbital space.
Onlookers held their breath as the manned SpaceShipOne performed unexpected but spectacular acrobatics on its way into space, the first step toward winning the Ansari X Prize on Wednesday.
A Californian-based team will this week launch its bid to claim a $10 million prize by putting a privately financed manned craft into sub-orbital space.
British entrepreneur Richard Branson has announced his company has signed a deal to offer the world's first commercial flights to space under the branding "Virgin Galactic."
When SpaceShipOne screams skyward this month on a mission to win an international human spaceflight competition, its rocket motor will be more powerful than ever, according to its designers.
A piloted rocket ship race to claim a $10 million Ansari X Prize purse for privately financed flight to the edge of space is heating up.
Flight data from the first private vehicle to soar beyond the Earth's atmosphere has been posted by Scaled Composites, designer and builder of the SpaceShipOne. The flight was not trouble-free.
NASA is implementing President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration issued this January, which directs the space agency to retire the shuttle program by 2010, develop a new manned exploration vehicle, develop a manned lunar program and base around 2020, and prepare to send humans to Mars.
SpaceShipOne soared into history Monday, becoming the first privately funded craft to reach space, defined as 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) above Earth's surface.
The man who became the first person to pilot a privately built craft into space called his flight "almost a religious experience" after his safe landing Monday morning.
If all goes well over the California desert Monday morning, Michael Melvill, 62, a veteran test pilot, will become the first civilian flier to earn his astronaut's wings aboard a privately financed spacecraft.
Kitty Hawk. Cape Canaveral. Mojave Desert.
The world's first privately built spacecraft is scheduled to leave Earth on June 21 and -- if successful -- usher in a new era of spaceflight for private enterprise.
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.
An attempt to have the first privately-financed manned space flight is set for June 21, backers of the effort announced Tuesday.
A desert airdrome in Mojave, California is on the final glide path to getting government approval for becoming an inland gateway to space.
The ultimate thrill ride could be closer to reality.
Want to change the world? Lead the assault on daunting frontiers? Goad your fellow man into achieving greatness? Improve the odds of finding a parking space? It's easy. Even better, it might make y...
We are coasting through the upper reaches of the night, somewhere between Milwaukee and Chicago, nestled in the cockpit of Vern Raburn's 1979 Turbo Commander. Dispatches from air traffic control mu...
In the information economy, with the routine perils of the Machine Age mostly fading memories, it may seem as though the greatest physical danger most people face on the job is carpal tunnel syndro...
LOOKS AWFULLY GOOD for being dead, doesn't it? Beech Aircraft, which makes the airplane above -- Starship -- says production is being suspended temporarily; Starship isn't dead, just resting. Wrong...
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