Sweet Success

摘要

At first glance, SpaceShipOne seems out of place in the National Air and Space Museum's Milestones of Flight gallery. Hanging from the same ceiling as Bell Aircraft's beefy little X-1 and North American's hulking black X-15, SpaceShipOne looks almost like a toy, with blue and white stars sprinkled across the underside of the fuselage. Many of the artifacts in Milestones bear U.S. Air Force and NASA markings; SpaceShipOne, however, advertises itself as "A Paul G. Allen Project." On June 21, 2004, this "project," bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder Allen and designed by Burt Rutan, became the first privately built and piloted vehicle to reach space.