Government Licenses First Private Rocket

[<bleeding_heart>]

WASHINGTON - Burt Rutan wants affordable space travel for the public to be a reality within 10 years.

The government helped the aviation maverick take a big step toward that goal Wednesday by awarding his company the first license for a manned suborbital rocket.

The Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) announced that it gave a one-year license to Rutan's company, Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif.

Rutan is best known for designing the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in 1986.

But his dream is to inspire excitement about space flight.

Though he declined to comment on obtaining the launch license, Rutan posted a statement on the company's Web site expressing his hopes that ordinary people can travel to space in 10 years.

"I strongly feel that, if we are successful, our program will mark the beginning of a renaissance for manned space flight," he wrote. "This might even be similar to that wonderful time period between 1908 and 1912 when the world went from a total of ten airplane pilots to hundreds of airplane types and thousands of pilots in 39 countries. We need affordable space travel to inspire our youth."

The Scaled Composites craft consists of a rocket plane, dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic jet designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude launch. SpaceShipOne, made of graphite and epoxy, has short wings and twin vertical tails. It reached 12.9 miles altitude in a trial flight; the license will allow the spacecraft to reach the edge of space, about 60 miles up.

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[jimma]

I thought the US always had to be first The starchaser program in the UK has had the British equivalent permissions for years, if memory serves me correct.