SPACE-AGE DESIGN: SpaceShipOne was designed and built by Scaled Composites, a company founded by Burt Rutan.

Rutan, the team leader for the SpaceShipOne project, became famous for building a privately funded airplane that in 1986 made the first flight around the world without refueling.

The US Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation announced in April 2004 that it had given Scaled Composites a license to fly its SpaceShipOne sub-orbital spacecraft. The license was issued on April 1, and allows Scaled to fly SpaceShipOne for the period of one year.

(L) SpaceShipOne test pilot Brian Binnie (left) shakes hands with Microsoft co-founder and project financier Paul Allen, even as Scaled Composites' boss Burt Rutan looks on. SpaceShipOne is in the brackground.

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