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X-Prize Foundation
XPRIZE Foundation is a non-profit organization that designs and hosts public competitions intended to encourage technological development. The XPRIZE mission is to bring about "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity" through incentivized competition. It aims to motivate individuals, companies, and organizations to develop ideas and technologies. The Ansari X Prize relating to spacecraft development was awarded in 2004, intended to inspire research and development into technology for space exploration. Background The first XPRIZE, the Ansari XPRIZE, was inspired by the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize offered in 1919 by French hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. In 1927, underdog Charles Lindbergh won the prize in a modified single-engine Ryan aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. In total, nine teams spent $400,000 in pursuit of the Orteig Prize. In 1996, entrepreneur Peter Diamandis offered a $10-million pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Diamandis
Peter H. Diamandis ( ; born May 20, 1961) is an American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University. He is also cofounder and former CEO of the Zero Gravity Corporation, cofounder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., founder and chairman of the Rocket Racing League, cofounder of the International Space University, cofounder of Planetary Resources, cofounder of Celularity, founder of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, and vice chairman and cofounder of Human Longevity, Inc. Early life Diamandis was born in the Bronx, New York to Greek immigrants. Diamandis expressed a keen interest in space exploration from a very early age. At age 8, he began lecturing his family and friends on space. At age 12, Diamandis won first place in the Estes Rocket Design Competition for building a launch system able to simultaneously ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Louis Science Center
The Saint Louis Science Center, founded as a planetarium in 1963, is a collection of buildings including a science museum and planetarium in St. Louis, Missouri, on the southeastern corner of Forest Park (St. Louis, Missouri), Forest Park. With over 750 exhibits in a complex of over , it is among the largest of its type in the United States. James S. McDonnell Planetarium Funding for the first structure of the current campus began in 1955, with $1 million of a $110 million city bond issue specified for the construction of a planetarium. Two years were spent surveying locations. The first proposed site, on the northern side of Forest Park near the Missouri History Museum, Jefferson Memorial Building at Lindell and DeBaliviere, was scrapped because of restrictions on subdivisions. The location was changed to the southern part of the park, on the site of the old mounted police station, which was demolished in 1960. The plan was to build a planetarium, science museum, and natural h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Foundation
The Space Foundation is an American nonprofit organization, the mission of which is to advocate for all sectors of the global space industry through space awareness activities, educational programs, and major industry events. It was founded in 1983. Locations Located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the foundation's headquarters includes team offices, as well as conference and other facilities. The Space Foundation has an office in Washington, D.C. and field representatives in Houston, Los Angeles, and the Florida Space Coast. Education The Space Foundation delivers K-12 student programs in laboratory, classroom and after-school settings. Programs include STEM, social studies, history, the arts and literature and are available to individual classes, school districts, public and private school, colleges and universities offering education curriculum and homeschool organizations. Space Symposium The Space Foundation hosts the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceShipOne Flight 17P
Flight 17P of SpaceShipOne was a spaceflight in the Scaled Composites Tier One, Tier One program that took place on October 4, 2004. It was the second competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition to demonstrate a non-governmental reusable crewed spacecraft, and is hence also referred to as the X2 flight. It was a successful flight, winning the X PRIZE. Crew Scheduling To win the X PRIZE, a spacecraft needed to make two successful competitive flights within 14 days. SpaceShipOne made a successful competitive flight on September 29, 2004, and so needed to make a second by October 13, 2004, in order to win. Scaled Composites aimed to be able to fly three times within the two weeks in order to allow for a failed flight. The date of the flight, October 4, 2004, was the 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth and the same day astronaut Gordon Cooper died. SpaceShipOne flight 11P, SpaceShipOne's first powered flight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Binnie
William Brian Binnie (April 26, 1953 – September 15, 2022) was a United States Navy officer and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites and flown from 2003 to 2004. Early life Binnie was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, on April 26, 1953, where his Scottish father William P. Binnie was a professor of physics at Purdue University. The family returned to Scotland when Binnie was five, and lived in Aberdeen (his father taught at Aberdeen University) and later in Stirling. When Binnie was a teenager the family moved to Boston. Binnie earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from Brown University. He earned a master's degree from Brown in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. Binnie was rejected by the United States Air Force, and enrolled at Princeton University, where he earned a master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering He served for 21 years in the United States Navy as a naval av ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, and investor. He co-founded Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Allen was ranked as the The World's Billionaires, 44th-wealthiest person in the world by ''Forbes'' with an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion at the time of his death in October 2018. Allen quit from day-to-day work at Microsoft in early 1983 after a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, remaining on its board as vice-chairman. He and his sister, Jody Allen, founded Vulcan Inc. in 1986, a privately held company that managed his business and philanthropic efforts. At the time of his death, he had a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio, including technology and media companies, scientific research, real estate holdings, private space flight ventures, and stakes in other sectors. He owned the Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. He also designed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest (342 mph/551 km/h in 67 hours) and longest (25,766 miles/41,466 km) nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period. With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Melvill
Michael Winston Melvill (born November 30, 1940, in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a world-record-breaking pilot and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space, SpaceShipOne flight 15P, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first commercial astronaut, and the 435th person to go into space. He was also the pilot on SpaceShipOne's SpaceShipOne flight 16P, flight 16P, the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition. Life and career In 1978, Melvill met aerospace designer and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan when he flew to California to show Rutan the Rutan VariViggen, VariViggen he had built at his home. Rutan then hired him on the spot. In 1982, he was named Rutan's lead test pilot. In 1997, Melvill and Dick Rutan, Burt's brother, flew two Rutan Long-EZ, Long-Eze aircraft that they built side-by-side around the world. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceShipOne Flight 15P
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, with the previous three test flights reaching 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, but not itself a competitive flight for the Ansari X Prize, the prize for the first non-governmental reusable crewed spacecraft. Problems were encountered during the flight but later corrected, paving the way for SpaceShipOne to make competitive flights later in 2004. Crew Flight profile All times are in PDT, which is seven hours behind UTC. This was the local civil time at the spaceport on the day of the flight. All measurements are first stated in the U.S. customary units in which they were originally reported, with conversions to SI units also given. Taxiing for takeoff from Mojave Spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ansari X PRIZE
The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 () prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight. Created in May 1996 and initially called just the "X Prize", it was renamed the "Ansari X Prize" on May 6, 2004, following a multimillion-dollar donation from entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari. The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne. $10 million was awarded to the winner, and more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize. Several other X Prizes have since been announced by the X Prize Foundation, promoting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceShipOne Test Pilot Mike Melvill After The Launch In Pursuit Of The Ansari X Prize On September 29, 2004
SpaceShipOne is an experimental air launch, air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to / using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "Feathering (reentry), feathering" atmospheric reentry system where the rear half of the wing and the twin tail booms folds 70 degrees upward along a hinge running the length of the wing; this increases drag (physics), drag while retaining stability. SpaceShipOne completed the first human spaceflight, crewed private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service. Its Mother ship (aviation), mother ship was named "Scaled Composites White Knight, White Knight". Both craft were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company. Allen provided the funding of approximately US$25 million. Rutan has indicated that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
