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This month marks 20 years since the beginning of the commercial space tourism industry. On August 1, 2002, Scaled Composites Model 318, known as White Knight, flew for the first time. An integral part of the modern space race, White Knight carried SpaceShipOne to the Ansari X Prize only a little more than two years later.
Although we’re only now living in the era when anyone with ample cash reserves can buy a ticket and be scheduled for a ride to space, Scaled Composites showed it was possible when the company ran away with the X Prize, proving the concept with two flights to space just a few days apart. White Knight, a distinctive Burt Rutan design, operating as the mothership, took SpaceShipOne to around 50,000 feet, where the craft dropped, and then fired a rocket booster for around a minute in order to reach space.
This same methodology continues today with Virgin Galactic’s efforts—designed by Scaled Composites—but differs from Blue Origin’s dedicated rocket approach.
Even though most of our collective excitement is with the commercial space tourism efforts that have been in constant development for the past two decades, the government began encouraging broader commercial space activities during the Reagan administration, the president signed a document that was intended to pave the way for commercial space activities. Then the primary focus was on commercial payloads, but it’s easy to see how the draw of space went far beyond satellites.
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