It was a one-of-a-kind moment for a throng of well-wishers, including this reporter, all in nose-up, sky-squinting position at California's Mojave Airport on June 21, 2004. Let loose from its White ...

Although NASA’s Project Mercury and SpaceShipOne served very different objectives, a closer look reveals that both missions were powered by equal parts of competition, innovation, and a strong dose of ...

Organizers of the Ansari X Prize announced Friday that SpaceShipOne will launch as planned on Oct. 4 to seal its victory for the competition's $10 million award. The second voyage of Paul Allen's ...

Scaled Composites is planning changes for its SpaceShipOne rocket glider, following a pitchup incident in flight test that showed the current configuration is not safe for the planned flight to 100 km ...

Nobody can claim that Burt Rutan, the innovative aerospace designer, doesn’t have his head in the clouds … and his eyes focused on the stars. Fresh from success of nudging the piloted SpaceShipOne’s ...

Only three human missions to space were launched from the United States this year, all of them operated by a private company called Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV). Monday, the third flight of the ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Aerospace maverick Burt Rutan, who designed the historic globe-circling Voyager aircraft and the first private manned rocket to reach space, will retire next year.Rutan, 67, ...

Part 2 explores the dramatically different approaches to the launch systems, and the surprising similarities in the factors that contributed to their success. Although they served very different ...