Rocket team hit $10m jackpot

AN ungainly looking private spaceship blasted through the Earth’s atmosphere for a second time in a week today to capture a $10 million prize meant to encourage tourists to get out of this world.

A crowd of thousands of enthusiasts in California's Mojave desert began celebrating as soon as SpaceShipOne appeared to have climbed just over 62 miles generally considered to be the point where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins.

The rocket plane, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, took off from a desert runway slung to the belly of a carrier plane with test pilot Brian Binnie at the wheel. It was released at about 46,000 feet and fired its rockets to continue to the edge of space.

"This is the true frontier of transportation," said Marion Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, who watched the flight.

About an hour after it landed, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis announced that SpaceShipOne's team had claimed the prize for the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly in space twice in two weeks. More than two dozen teams from around the world had made attempts but only SpaceShipOne had made it into space.

Diamandis came up with the X Prize, hoping it would have the same effect on space travel as the Orteig Prize had on air travel. Charles Lindbergh claimed that $25,000 prize in 1927 after making his solo transatlantic flight.