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At five am, with the sun lighting the sky from below the horizon, thousands of people have gathered 90 miles north of Los Angeles at the Mojave Civilian Test Flight Center to watch the historic first attempt for space of Space Ship One.
Already the viewing area is packed with people. At about 6:30 the mated White Knight and Space Ship One took off, preceeded by a few chase planes. Over the next hour they rose to 50,000 feet. They were often lost in the white sky near the sun, even with binoculars it was hard to keep track of them.
Then the moment came, over the radio we heard that there was five minutes till ignition. The crowd spotted the craft and the chase plane right under the sun. Looking through the binoculars I could see the craft and it's contrail. The contrail disappeared, and then a few seconds later a much larger white plume appeared, stemming from an easily visible red flame behind the white space ship.
The craft picked up speed incredibly quickly, its speed far exceeding White Knight's immediately. For over a minute the rocket burned, a bright white trail of smoke arcing across the sky, then it disappeared. We heard over the radio that it had reached apogee and was headed back down.
We searched the sky and finally found the separate craft on their way down. They met up in formation and proceeded to land right in front of us, Space Ship One coming down first.
After landing, they hooked up the craft to a truck and towed it past the crowd, the 61 year old test pilot standing proudly on top waving to the enthusiastic crowd.
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Movie: 2004Jun21a.mov (7.8MB)
Movie: 2004Jun21b.mov (9.2MB)
Movie: 2004Jun21c.mov (3.3MB)
Movie: 2004Jun21d.mov (2.3MB)
Movie: 2004Jun21e.mov (6.2MB)
Movie: 2004Jun21f.mov (4.2MB)
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