GSC Update

*The $10 million Ansari X-Prize was captured early this morning by SpaceShipOne pilot Brian Binnie. In a seamless flight high above the Mojave desert, the craft and civillian astronaut rocketed to a height of 367,442 feet (112 kilometers), breaking the previous height record of the X-15 rocket plane. The team, led by Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites, sucessfully demonstrated all the objectives of the X-Prize competiton, and even managed to launch the second flight on the October 4th, the 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. Several other X-Prize teams, including the Canadian DaVinci team, still plan on launching. Rutan, however, is setting his sights even higher with plans for launching Virgin Galactic- a public space access company selling tickets to the fringes of space.

*Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, American pilot and astronaut, died October 4th at the age of 77. Immortilized in Tom Wolfe's novel and the movie "The Right Stuff", Gordo's cocky attitude and talent as a pilot were apparent every time somebody asked him "Who's the best pilot you ever saw?" to which he always replied, "You're lookin' at him!" Cooper was one of the Original Mercury 7 astronauts, the last American to launch solo into space aboard Faith 7, and also commanded the Gemini 5 endurance mission in the early days of the space race.

As always, information from Space.com
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