SpaceShip Two Spaceshipone.
Like SpaceShipTwo, Spaceshipone was released at a high altitude by a plane,
WhiteKnightOne, and completed the rest of the trip into space.
Spaceshipone climbed to an altitude of 377,591 feet(115,090 m)
and was the first privately funded effort to successfully put a civilian in suborbital space.
The Spaceshipone technology was licensed by Sir Richard
Branson for Virgin Galactic, which is testing a successor design to carry tourists on brief hops into lower regions of space.
While there are no operators offering sub-orbital flight,
the privately funded and built Spaceshipone in 2004 demonstrated that this is a possible market
and the race is on to commercialize it.
While there are currently no operators offering sub-orbital flight,
the privately funded and built Spaceshipone in 2004 demonstrated that this is a possible market
and the race is on to commercialize it.