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SpaceShipOne is Time's 'Invention of the Year'

Last updated on: November 22, 2004 12:48 IST

The SpaceShipOne. Photograph: Scaled CompositesSpaceShipOne, the world first privately developed spacecraft that first entered the space in October, has been named '2004 Invention of the Year' by Time magazine as a part of its annual 'Coolest Invention' issue.

The craft, designed like a shuttlecock, made three trips outside in space this year and won an X Prize of $10 million for private space travel after it made two trips in two-week period.

Time praised its designer Burt Rutan as 'ingenious.' Rutan, Time noted, personally designed the craft, a vehicle 'as improbable as it is revolutionary.'

The size of a small biplane, SpaceShipOne is a shell of woven graphite glued onto a rocket motor that runs on laughing gas and rubber. Portholes, like an ocean liner, punctuate the nose. Inside, the critical instrument is a Ping-Pong ball decorated with a smiley face and attached to the cabin with a piece of string, which goes slack when the pilot reaches the zero-gravity of suborbital space.

Backed by two starry-eyed billionaires, SpaceShipOne is set to become the first in a new line of space-tourism craft coming in 2007.

"It's a spaceship that fits in your two-car garage, and you can take it to space every other day," says X Prize founder Peter Diamandis. "That's pretty cool."

A selection of 'Cool Inventions' to make Time's list include:

-- PTI

The SpaceShipOne. Photograph: Scaled Composites

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