Very cool: SpaceShipOne makes it into space!

SpaceShipOne left the Earth behind on Monday morning and made its indelible entry in the history books as the first private spacecraft to carry humans into space. It touched down safely at Mojave Airport at 11:15 ET.

“It looks great,” said Burt Rutan, chief of Scaled Composites, which built the craft. He gave a thumbs up on the runway as he squinted into the sun at the aircraft he designed. At 10:51 ET, Mike Melvill ignited the rocket engines and piloted SpaceShipOne into the blackness of space. His trajectory took him more than 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, above Earth’s atmosphere, according to Scaled Composites flight officials. “It was a mind-blowing experience, it really was — absolutely an awesome thing,” Melvill said after landing.

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p>iTunes: “Armed Forces” by Manufacture from the album Nettwerk Decadence (1988, 4:16).

[See also: First floor: mens wear, ladies undergarments, and zero-g toilets | Safer nuclear missiles | Convert Kmph to Mph | Desktop images from Columbia | Photographic glitches? Lightning? Alien death rays? ]

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