June 23rd, 2004
New Scientist | ‘Anomalies’ in first private spaceflight revealed
The Ansari X Prize is still open….. The flight of the first private astronaut was not as perfect as it first appeared � a number of glitches occurred during the flight, some potentially catastrophic.
The revelations were made by Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, which on Monday became the world’s first privately funded craft to enter space. Until the team fully understands exactly what went wrong during the flight, he said, they will not go ahead with the pair of flights needed to claim the $10 million Ansari X-Prize.
