Mike Melvill, the world’s first commercial and longtime test pilot for Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, died on March 19 at the age of 85. Melvill flew SpaceShipOne, built by Scaled, to an altitude of a little more than 62 miles to become the first to go into space on a privately built spacecraft on Sept. 29, 2004. The flight enabled Scaled to claim a $10 million cash prize from billionaire Michael Ansari, but Rutan had some prophetic words after Melvill recovered at Mojave Airport (later Spaceport). “Our success proves without question that manned space flight does not require mammoth government expenditures,” Rutan said. “It can be done by a small company operating with limited resources and a few dozen dedicated employees.”
The flight itself was hardly the smooth transition to the commercial space era. Shortly after separating from the mothership WhiteKnightOne, the spacecraft went into an uncontrollable aerodynamic roll and completed 29 rotations before it ran out of atmosphere and Melvill was able to arrest it on the edge of space using control thrusters. He reached 337,600 feet (almost 64 miles). Melvill and his family built a Rutan-designed VariViggen from plans and they flew it from their home in Anderson, Indiana, to Rutan’s shop in Mojave in 1977. After flying the aircraft, the first completion, Rutan offered Melvill a job, and Melvill was the test pilot on all of Rutan’s designs. He retired in 2007.