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THE X-PRIZE – THE DAWN OF PRIVATE SPACEFLIGHT
Test pilot and private astronaut Brian Binnie created history on 4 October 2004, the 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. He was the pilot of Spaceship One on the second of two flights to exceed an altitude of 320,000 feet twice within 14 days, thereby claiming the $10 million Ansari X-Prize. In doing so, Spaceship One became the first private manned spacecraft to fly above 100 km altitude and briefly enter space. The flights of Spaceship One were part of the Tier One private manned space programme operated by Scaled Composites.
The X-Prize challenge
The X-Prize was created in 1996 with the challenge of placing the same privately funded manned spacecraft in space on a sub-orbital trajectory twice within two weeks. The X-Prize was modelled on the Orteig Prize, which was won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 by flying solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.
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First captive flight of White Knight and Spaceship One. © 2004 Mojave Aerospace Ventures LLC, photographed by Scaled Composites. Spaceship One is a Paul G. Allen Project. Used with permission. |
The idea of privately funded manned space flights instead of government sponsored ones was attractive to commercial and entrepreneurial organisations across the globe and has its routes in classic science fiction stories of the 1940s and 1950s, and in attempts to get a private citizen into space as early as the 1980s. The original X-Prize was proposed in order to advance the goal of manned space flight by private flights, using private contributions, entrance fees from teams and user fees from a proposed X – Prize credit card. By May 1998 fourteen teams had entered the competition. There were ten American entrants, three from England and one from Argentina.
The programme and its success also boosted support for the idea of “space tourism” and, coupled with the flights of “space flight participants”, or “space tourists” on Soyuz flights, has seen a growth in interest in the idea of private citizens making flights into space in recent years. In 2004, the X-Prize was renamed the Ansari X-Prize when Anousheh Ansari and her brother-in-law contributed a “significant donation” to the foundation on 5 May 2004. Ansari of course became the fourth “space tourist” on a Soyuz mission to ISS in September 2006, and is the last entry in this edition of the log. A future edition is highly likely to include many more orbital space flights by private citizens in the coming years.