SpaceShipOne is the First Privately-Funded, Manned Spaceplane to achieve Space Flight!

In Mojave, California, SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately-funded, manned spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. It was developed by Scaled Composites.

SpaceShipOne was an experimental air-launched suborbital spaceplane that used a hybrid rocket motor. The design featured a unique "feathering" reentry system where the rear half of the wing and the twin tail booms folded upward along a hinge running the length of the wing; this increased drag while remaining stable. The achievements of SpaceShipOne are more comparable to the X-15 than orbiting spacecraft like the Space Shuttle. Accelerating a spacecraft to orbital speed requires more than 60 times as much energy as lifting it to 100 km.

SpaceShipOne was developed by Mojave Aerospace Ventures (A joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company, in their Tier One program), without government funding. Today it made the first privately funded human spaceflight, funded completely by Paul Allen.

It is not, however the first privately-funded spacecraft to achieve spaceflight, but the first MANNED one. Prior unmanned privately funded space flights were successfully achieved by the Orbital Sciences Pegasus since 1990 and the Civilian Space eXploration Team 5 weeks ago in May 2004. Scaled Composites is also the subcontractor to Orbital Sciences who builds the composite wings and fins of their Pegasus rockets.