Spaceship One makes flight 1 of 2 for X-Prize

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

Spaceship One made its first flight of 2 for the X-Prize. Think it will make it? This first one was pretty shaky.

I liked one of the post-flight comments about how the unexpected roll demonstrated how simple and safe SpaceShipOne is. Any other crewed spacecraft -- X15, STS, Soyuz -- would almost certainly have had a "really bad day" under such conditions. But pilot Mike Melvill just kept it pointed up and straight until he knew it was on track to make altitude, and shut off the engine a few seconds early to make it easier to cancel the roll.

I wonder who's going to be the pilot for the second flight on Monday.