While it will still be some time (and at least two more flights) before the private investors, inventors, and pilots behind SpaceShipOne collect their $10 million X Prize, we will all benefit from the privatization of space. Thankfully, NASA’s current administrator Sean O’Keefe understands the benefits as well:
We applaud the remarkable achievement of Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and test pilot Mike Melvill following the first successful suborbital flight of SpaceShip One. Not unlike the first U.S. and Soviet space travelers in 1961, and China’s first successful spaceflight this year, these private citizens are pioneers in their own right. They are doing much to open the door to a new marketplace offering the experience of weightlessness and suborbital space flight to the public.
Mojave … we have lift-off. Now that rocks!