SpaceShipOne Flies to Space and Wins the X-Prize
SpaceShipOne flew to space Monday morning, for the second time in less than a week. This time, though it came back down $10 million richer, taking the Ansari X-Prize. Pilot Brian Bennie guided the suborbital spacecraft to an altitude of more than 114 km (368,000 feet) after taking off from the Mojave Spaceport in California. Today’s flight was completely smooth, without the terrifying series of barrel rolls at the highest point. Monday’s flight was so high that it even beat records set by NASA’s X-15 aircraft 40 years ago.
Recent Posts
Dinkinesh's Moonlet is Only 2-3 Million Years Old
Last November, NASA's Lucy mission conducted a flyby of the asteroid Dinkinish, one of the…
The Universe Could Be Filled With Ultralight Black Holes That Can't Die
Steven Hawking famously calculated that black holes should evaporate, converting into particles and energy over…
Starlink on Mars? NASA Is Paying SpaceX to Look Into the Idea
NASA has given the go-ahead for SpaceX to work out a plan to adapt its…
Did You Hear Webb Found Life on an Exoplanet? Not so Fast…
The JWST is astronomers' best tool for probing exoplanet atmospheres. Its capable instruments can dissect…
Vera Rubin’s Primary Mirror Gets its First Reflective Coating
First light for the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is quickly approaching and the telescope is…
Two Stars in a Binary System are Very Different. It's Because There Used to be Three
A beautiful nebula in the southern hemisphere with a binary star at it's center seems…