SpaceShipOne

I took a road trip with three of my very good buddies to witness the first space flight of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. We stayed in an a Motel 6 in Mojave next to the railroad tracks. The morning of the flight, we arrived at the airfield around 4:00 AM to find it packed with every nerd that lived within a 1000-mile radius. So we fit right in. The flight was successful and spectacular. I took these photos with a Pentax ME Super with a big zoom on it. The photos are scanned, so they are of lower quality than we might like.

This is the space vehicle with its mothership climbing to launch altitude:

This is moments after the space ship's rocket was ignited and it is heading towards vertical. It took off nearly directly into the sun from our vantage point:

Here the space ship continues to climb. The plume from the rocket was a bit twisty as a result of maneuvering by the pilot:

More climbing:

This is first sight of the craft as it came down. It is gliding:

After the craft slowed enough, it was escorted by two chase planes, a Beech Starship and a small aerobatic plane:

More escorting:

The aerobatic plane popped some smoke in celebration of the successful flight: