Flight 15P of
SpaceShipOne (X0) was the first privately funded
human spaceflight. It took place on June 21, 2004. It was the fourth powered test flight of the
Tier One program, the previous three test flights having reached much lower altitudes. The flight carried only its
pilot,
Mike Melvill, who thus became the first non-governmental
astronaut.
This flight was a full-altitude test. SpaceShipOne was dropped from its carrier aircraft, White Knight, at 14:50 UTC (7:50am PDT), at an altitude of 47,000 feet (14,000 m), and fired its on-board rocket for 76 seconds. It reached a peak altitude of 328,491 feet (100,124 m), becoming the first commercial manned spacecraft to cross the Kármán line. It landed safely at Mojave Air and Space Port, California, 15:14 UTC (8:14am PDT).
Flight 15P was a test flight to prepare Scaled Composites to compete for the Ansari X Prize, the prize for the first non-governmental reusable manned spacecraft. Scaled Composites would win the Ansari X Prize in October 2004 after two more successful flights.
Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr. (born February 28, 1924 in
Phoebus,
Virginia, died July 07, 2019 in
Houston, Texas) was a
NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's
Mission Control operation. Following his graduation from
Virginia Tech in 1944, Kraft was hired by the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor organization to the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He worked for over a decade in aeronautical research before being asked in 1958 to join the
Space Task Group, a small team entrusted with the responsibility of putting America's first man in space. Assigned to the flight operations division, Kraft became NASA's first
flight director. He was on duty during such historic missions as America's
first human spaceflight,
first human orbital flight, and
first spacewalk.
At the beginning of the Apollo program, Kraft retired as a flight director to concentrate on management and mission planning. In 1972, he became director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (later Johnson Space Center), following in the footsteps of his mentor Robert R. Gilruth. He held the position until his 1982 retirement from NASA. During his retirement, Kraft has consulted for numerous companies including IBM and Rockwell International, and he published an autobiography entitled Flight: My Life in Mission Control.
More than any other person, Kraft was responsible for shaping the organization and culture of NASA's Mission Control. As his protégé Glynn Lunney commented, "the Control Center today ... is a reflection of Chris Kraft." When Kraft received the National Space Trophy from the Rotary Club in 1999, the organization described him as "a driving force in the U.S. human space flight program from its beginnings to the Space Shuttle era, a man whose accomplishments have become legendary."