Melvill lights a hybrid rocket over the Mojave and rides a private ship past 100 kilometers

For forty-three years, reaching space had been a government monopoly — the exclusive province of NASA, the Soviet program, and their billion-dollar agencies. On June 21, 2004, pilot Mike Melvill climbed into a five-foot-wide pressurized cabin beneath the carrier aircraft White Knight and rode it to 14 kilometers above the Mojave Desert before lighting a hybrid rocket that pushed him past 100 kilometers in altitude. SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and funded by Paul Allen for roughly $25 million, had done what no private team had ever done. Hours after landing, Melvill became the first licensed U.S. commercial astronaut…