'SPACESHIPONE' PREPARES FOR $10 MILLION CHALLENGE -- The Tier One project, a private space venture funded by Paul G. Allen and carried out by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, is ready to attempt the first of two flights to space needed to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize. The winner must launch a vehicle capable of carrying three people into space, and must do it twice in two weeks. Each time it must reach 100 kilometers (62.14 statute miles), an altitude considered the edge of space, and return safely. The first flight for the prize, scheduled for September 29, will carry a single, and as yet unnamed, pilot in SpaceShipOne, plus weight equal to that of two people. [AOPA]
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