MOJAVE — A rocket powered by a mixture of rubber and laughing gas soared 328,491 feet Monday to become the first privately funded vehicle to carry a person into space.
Piloted by 63-year-old Michael W. Melvill, SpaceShipOne climbed into the record books by rising to new heights.
With the suborbital flight that included 3 1/2 minutes of weightlessness, Melvill became the first human being to reach space -- defined as about 62 miles above Earth -- without any government funding or help, a feat that space enthusiasts said could usher in a new age of commercial space travel.
"I could see the curvature of Earth. I could see all the way out to San Diego and the coastline.... It was mind-boggling," Melvill, a veteran test pilot, said shortly after making a perfect glide landing in front of about 20,000 people who came to watch the event, which was more like a rock concert than a typical space shot.
With some gazers wearing spacesuits and others carrying anti-government political signs (proclaimed one: "We're going to space and the government is not invited"), organizers unabashedly called it the Woodstock for space enthusiasts.
The flight came five weeks after Melvill took SpaceShipOne to 211,400 feet, or about 40 miles above Earth, setting an altitude record for a civilian craft and overcoming a major technical challenge to reach the edge of space.
The May 13 test gave the project's backers the confidence to attempt the first manned commercial spaceflight far sooner than space analysts had expected.
"It is a great day for space exploration, not only for the record it set but for the excitement it will generate with the public," said Bruce Betts, director of projects for the Pasadena-based Planetary Society.
The Guinness Book of World Records swiftly dubbed the rocket launch the "first ever privately funded manned spaceflight."
The Federal Aviation Administration also conferred its first commercial astronaut wings on Melvill, allowing him to join an elite cadre of pilots who have flown more than 50 miles above Earth.
One of them, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was on hand to congratulate Melvill and welcome him to the "club."
Burt Rutan, a pioneering aircraft designer, and Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft Corp. who is financing the project, took turns hugging Melvill as he crawled out of the tiny cockpit of SpaceShipOne. Melvill works for Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, which is based in Mojave.
