« on: July 27, 2004, 11:28:16 PM »
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (Reuters) - The U.S. team behind the first privately funded, manned ship to reach space on Tuesday announced a schedule for two more flights within a week of each other in a bid to win a $10-million prize intended to kick-start a commercial space race.
In a news conference at a Los Angeles airport that was launch site for the first round-the-world airplane flight 80 years ago, Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, said his team would make its first launch on Sept. 29 for the Ansari X Prize.
The prize, offered by a group of private donors, will go to the first team that sends three people, or an equivalent weight, into space, safely returns them, and repeats the entire venture within two weeks.
The required second flight is tentatively set to take off from the Mojave Desert on Oct. 4, although Rutan said his team would be ready to make a third attempt by Oct. 13 if one of the others failed.
Any body planning on watching a space shot?
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