Free Republic

SpaceShipOne Breaks the Sound Barrier Today, a significant milestone was achieved by Scaled Composites: The first manned supersonic flight by an aircraft developed by a small company's private, non-government effort. In 1947, fifty-six years ago, history's first supersonic flight was flown by Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1 rocket under a U.S. Government research program. Since then, many supersonic aircraft have been developed for research, military and, in the case of the recently retired Concorde, commercial applications. All these efforts were developed by large aerospace prime companies, using extensive government resources. Our flight this morning by SpaceShipOne demonstrated that supersonic...

(Mojave, Calif.-AP, Oct 4, 2004 Updated 10:54 AM) _ A stubby rocket plane was slung from the belly of a carrier plane toward space Monday in the final leg of a trip toward the edge of the Earth's atmosphere and a $10 million prize. A new pilot and potential astronaut, Brian Binnie, was chosen to fly the second flight into space in six days for SpaceShipOne, the rocket plane funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. The carrier plane took off from a desert runway and the plane was released in midair and fired its rocket to continue on its...

PASADENA - The Rose Parade float that almost wasn't came through in fine fashion Saturday, not only representing the Antelope Valley as it made its way down the famed Colorado Boulevard parade route, but by also grabbing the Princess Trophy for most beautiful small float, under 35 feet. Float organizers speculated that perhaps it had something to do with the luck and charisma of a few of its riders who had already won a coveted prize in their own field: aerospace designer Burt Rutan and pilot-astronauts Michael Melvill and Brian Binnie of SpaceShipOne fame. "We're just ecstatic," said Mary Rainwater,...