The Sky's The Limit
Why the amazing SpaceShipOne is Time's Invention of the Year

When the first American flew into space in 1961, Burt Rutan was a 17-year-old college freshman. Listening to news of Alan Shepard's groundbreaking suborbital flight on the radio, Rutan was euphoric. He too hoped to go into space one day—and was disappointed that a cautious NASA had allowed the Soviets to beat the u.s. to the prize. "We could have had the first man in space," Rutan recalls, "and we sent a monkey instead."

The possibilities back then seemed limitless, and it was easy for Rutan's generation to imagine they would all get to taste zero-gravity one day. It didn't work out that way. After NASA reached the moon in 1969, its focus shifted to unmanned probes, orbital experiments and a costly low-orbit shuttle system. The imagined future of Everyman as astronaut evaporated. This year, more than four decades after Shepard's flight, only two Americans have made the jump into space from U.S. soil—both launched not by NASA but by Rutan's tiny company, known for build-your-own-airplane kits.

Rutan designed their craft, SpaceShipOne, a vehicle as improbable as it is revolutionary. The size of a small biplane, SpaceShipOne is a shell of woven graphite glued onto a rocket motor that runs on laughing gas and rubber. The nose is punctuated by portholes, like an ocean liner. Inside, the critical instrument is a Ping-Pong ball decorated with a smiley face and attached to the cabin with a piece of string, which goes slack when the pilot reaches the zero-gravity of suborbital space.

Despite its Flash Gordon looks and unorthodox design, SpaceShipOne was more than able to match Shepard's trailblazing journey. In June it became the first privately funded spacecraft. In October it clinched the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the first such craft to travel to space twice in two weeks. Thanks to the backing of two starry-eyed billionaires, SpaceShipOne is set to become the first in a new line of space-tourism craft coming in 2007. "It's a spaceship that fits in your two-car garage, and you can take it to space every other day," says X Prize founder Peter Diamandis. "That's pretty cool."

We agree. For solving the problems of suborbital flight and re-entry with ingenious design, for boldly going where NASA now fears to tread and returning without a scratch, but most of all for reigniting the moon-shot-era dream of zero-gravity for everyone, SpaceShipOne is Time's Coolest Invention of 2004.

Concerned that SpaceShipOne was destined for nothing more than the National Air and Space Museum, Rutan enlisted another aeronautics enthusiast and billionaire, Virgin's Richard Branson. Over dinner in Mojave, they sketched out a vision of suborbital and orbital space tourism over the next 75 years. Branson was instantly won over. He ordered five larger versions of SpaceShipOne with seats for five passengers and a pilot.

Rutan knows that to sell tickets, he must make flights "at least a hundred times" safer than space travel has been so far. After all, of the 430 humans who have flown into space, 18 died there. "You can't have an airline that kills 4% of its passengers," says Rutan.

But prospective passengers don't seem worried. Branson already has a waiting list of more than 7,000 people who are willing to pay the $190,000 price for a suborbital flight. "This isn't just a pipe dream," says Branson. "We will get this to the point where thousands of people can go into space." —from TIME, November 29, 2004

Questions

1. Why was SpaceShipOne selected as Time's Invention of the Year for 2004?

2. What issue does Burt Rutan plan to address in order to sell tickets for future trips into space?