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Cape Canaveral (UPI) Jun 07, 2004
The faithful, the curious, and of course the news media will gather on June 21 to witness the start of a new era in human spaceflight. They will not travel to Cape Canaveral, where all other human U.S. expeditions to space have set sail. They will not be visiting the Russian launch site, either, which until China's foray into space last year was the only other place on Earth from which living beings have left the planet.
The birthplace of this 21st century space race is California's Mojave Desert, a remote and wind-swept region largely untouched by the hands of time -- with one notable exception. The skies over Mojave have been the backdrop for an armada of esoteric flying machines created by wizard engineers employed by government agencies and private firms.
It was in Mojave airspace that test-pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in October 1947. It is where, 39 years later, pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager (no relation to Chuck Yeager) took off in an aircraft called Voyager, which was built by Rutan's brother Burt for a non-stop journey around the world.
After flying 24,986 miles, the aviators landed back at Mojave nine days after takeoff, the first pilots to circumnavigate the globe without refueling. At the time, it was thought to be the last major flight record.
Burt Rutan was far from finished, however. Having reached the sky's limit, he set his eyes on space. Working quietly at his Mojave-based firm, Scaled Composites, Rutan's team created SpaceShipOne, a vehicle that one might expect to find in George Jetson's garage. It looks more airplane than rocketship, with swooped-back vertical wings framing a sleek, pointy nosed cockpit.
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