White Knight and SpaceShipOne taxiing for takeoff.

I just finished reading Julian Guthrie’s book “How to Make a Spaceship“.  When I picked it up, I knew it was going to be about the Ansari XPRIZE and the start of private manned spaceflight, but I didn’t expect so many different inspirational tales to be seamlessly woven throughout the larger story.  The prologue jumped right into the cockpit of SpaceShipOne with Mike Melvill’s historic first flight to space on June 21st, 2004.  It was particularly special to learn about that flight, because we were part of the 25,000 people on the ground in Mojave watching it live.  Continue reading →