SpaceShipOne

An illustrated account of the historic first commercial spaceship, featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes materials.

“Every great achievement of the human spirit needs a storyteller to document and immortalize that feat. For SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded rocket-plane to carry humans into space, that person is Dan Linehan. And SpaceShipOne: An Illustrated History is that story.” —Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of Nova scienceNow

In April 2003, a company called Scaled Composites lifted the veil of secrecy from a longtime research program and introduced SpaceShipOne to the world. And the age of commercial space travel took off . . . like a rocket. Packed with more than 230 photos, exclusive diagrams, flight logs, and interviews with the individuals who made air-and-space history, SpaceShipOne: An Illustrated History covers the full scope of drama behind an aviation milestone on par with the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, and Apollo 11. SpaceShipOne is the first of a new breed of spaceship, ushering in a personal spaceflight industry that will soon take twenty-first-century tourists to the final frontier.

“A visual feast that puts the reader inside the hangar as well as the cockpit. . . . The people . . . are as fascinating as the spaceship itself.” —Air & Space Smithsonian