SpaceShipOne Designers Get $10M Award
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The designers of the first privately manned rocket to burst into space were handed a $10 million check Saturday, a prize designed to encourage technology that will open the heavens to tourists.
SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan (search) accepted the Ansari X Prize money along with a 150-pound trophy as a chase plane flew over the ceremony in a field adjacent to the St. Louis Science Center.
The rocket plane, financed with more than $20 million from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen (search), qualified for the prize by blasting into space twice in five days last month.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Eight years ago, we stood here and said one day someone is going to do something no one's ever done before," said Doug King, president of the Science Center.
The X Prize (search), offered to the first team to get into space twice in a 14-day span, will now evolve into a regular competition called the X Prize Cup.
More than two-dozen teams worldwide began projects in hopes of winning the original X Prize, and prize founder Peter Diamandis said the purpose of the Cup competition is to keep such groups going with a "grand prix of space."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The prize got its start in St. Louis 1996, when Diamandis read Charles Lindbergh's "The Spirit of St. Louis" and realized how aviation contests, like the $25,000 Orteig prize awarded to Lindbergh, helped launch mainstream air travel.
Several aviation enthusiasts donated $25,000 apiece to jump-start the X Prize. The Ansari family of Texas then pledged more than $1 million, which helped draw more investors.
SpaceShipOne (search), which took off from the Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles, completed the first flight Sept. 29 and a second flight Oct. 4.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced that beginning in 2007, he will sell suborbital space rides for about $200,000 per person, using SpaceShipOne's technology.
Branson has said more than 7,000 people have shown interest.
"We've always known that our prize is just a start," said Gregg Maryniak, the X Prize's executive director. "The real prize is the business, opening the frontiers of space for everyone."