SpaceShipOne
2003-2004
The first privately built spacecraft to reach space. Air-launched, hybrid-rocket-powered, with a 'feathering' reentry - it won the US$10M Ansari X Prize in 2004.
Specs
First flight 20 May 2003; spaceflights (beyond 100 km) in 2004; ~3,300 km/h; built by Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan); now at the Smithsonian NASM.
Why it matters
It proved spaceflight can be repeatable and affordable technology - the direct ancestor of today's commercial suborbital and orbital flights.