Skip to Content
Uncategorized

Will Burt Rutan Make History June 21?

In a rare announcement of an upcoming event, Scaled Composites, the aerospace company run by Burt Rutan, revealed that it will attempt to send its SpaceShipOne spacecraft into space on June 21. If all goes well, SpaceShipOne will fly on…
June 2, 2004

In a rare announcement of an upcoming event, Scaled Composites, the aerospace company run by Burt Rutan, revealed that it will attempt to send its SpaceShipOne spacecraft into space on June 21. If all goes well, SpaceShipOne will fly on a suborbital trajectory to an altitude of at least 100 kilometers, the widely-accepted boundary of space. If successful SpaceShipOne will be the first privately developed manned spacecraft to travel into space, and it will set the stage for Scaled to win the $10-million Ansari X Prize. (The flight itself won’t be one of the two qualifying flights needed to win the prize, since Scaled will apparently not carry the equivalent mass of two passengers as required for the X Prize rules.) The announcement, coming nearly three weeks before the flight itself, is unusual: Scaled has cloaked the project in a tight veil of secrecy, not announcing any of its previous test flights in advance. In fact, Scaled is inviting the public to attend the flight. Expect thousands to converge on tiny Mojave, CA, about 150 km north of Los Angeles, to see what could be a historic flight.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it

The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.

Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives

The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.

Learning to code isn’t enough

Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.