Word: pilots
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...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...
...world nonstop without refueling, which his brother Dick helped fly into the record books in 1986. But the design for SpaceShipOne inspired near universal derision. "When I first saw it, I thought he'd lost his mind," says Mike Melvill, Rutan's oldest employee, longtime friend and faithful test pilot...
...ignites its engine, which is fueled by nitrous oxide and rubber, and a plume of white smoke shoots straight up into the sky. Unlike the computer-driven shuttle, SpaceShipOne is controlled by an old-fashioned mechanical stick and rudder. That makes the altitude climb hair-raising for the pilot. "It's going faster than a speeding bullet," says Melvill, who piloted the vehicle's first flight, "and you're trying to control it by hand...
...beginning around 158,000 ft., well before SpaceShipOne's apogee, where the sky goes black and you can see the curvature of the earth, Melvill and fellow test pilot Brian Binnie each had a good four minutes of weightlessness with nothing to do. Both took digital-camera snapshots through the portholes. Melvill scattered a handful of M&M's and watched them float. Binnie took out a tiny model of SpaceShipOne and flew it around the cabin. Then that crazy hinge raises the wings, Earth's gravity kicks in, and SpaceShipOne becomes a glider. "It's like falling into...
...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...