Mimicking the $10 million X Prize that spurred the development of the suborbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, Mr. Bigelow offered $50 million to anyone who could build an orbital spacecraft.
Melvill climbed onto the roof of SpaceShipOne, and straddled it like Major Kong in "Dr. Strangelove".
But would it have been a little less endearing if M&M's had been an official sponsor of SpaceShipOne?
— with its replica of SpaceShipOne, its computerized toilets and solar-cell-covered parking lots — can be a delirious experience.
Furthermore, there is cause for modest optimism about the changes that the flight of SpaceShipOne signals in the broader space business, as a new breed of entrepreneur creates a thoroughly modern industry.In the short term, the next step for SpaceShipOne is to prepare for two further flights that could win it a $10m prize.
The flight made an instant celebrity of Mr. Melvill and brought further fame to Burt Rutan, the designer of SpaceShipOne and its carrier plane, the birdlike White Knight.
But afterward, Mr. Allen receded from the space limelight as Mr. Rutan worked on a larger version of SpaceShipOne for Mr. Branson's Virgin Galactic, which will launch out of a newly built spaceport in New Mexico, maybe by late next year.
Other wealthy entrepreneurs, such as Dennis Tito (the first of the tourists taken up by the Russians) and Sir Richard Branson (proprietor of the Virgin Group), who have expressed an interest in commercial space ventures, turned up to the launch of SpaceShipOne.
Burt Rutan, the inventor of SpaceShipOne, Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, and Sir Richard Branson, the chairman of the group of companies that owns Virgin Galactic, each seek to privatise the business of transporting goods and people into space.
