Dick went on to win his place in the history books as one of a pair of pilots who flew non-stop around the world without refueling aboard the Voyager aircraft. Burt, who designed Voyager, is now showing the world he also can build a better spacecraft.

When test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed into space Wednesday, he inadvertently put on a dizzying show at the peak of his flight -- although Melvill did not seem to mind the spin.

I thought it was kind of cool, the 63-year old grandfather remarked at a news briefing afterward. The flight for me was great. The airplane just went straight up. All of that rolling was entirely me and not the vehicle ... I think it looks good to the crowd if you can roll at the top of the climb.

Melvill did not stop the roll until he was sure SpaceShipOne's engine had burned long enough to reach 62 miles (100 kilometers) -- the altitude required to qualify for the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The cash will be awarded to the first team that builds and flies a privately funded vehicle to the required altitude two times within two weeks. The vehicle must have a least one person aboard and be able to carry a total of three.

To fulfill the weight requirements of additional passengers, Burt Rutan flew personal items from his employees at Scaled Composites, which built the craft, and from his partners in the project, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and associates at Allen's company, Vulcan Inc., of Seattle.

SpaceShipOne also carried pictures from schoolchildren and small pine trees -- which grow well in both Mojave and Seattle, Burt joked. Just before the flight, he also decided to fly his mother's ashes.

To the untrained eye, it looked like SpaceShipOne's flight was over before it had reached its target.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. It does not appear to be a scripted maneuver, said a Web cast commentator, as he watched the live video being relayed from cameras positioned inside and outside SpaceShipOne.

Come on, Mike, added another commentator.

Watching the rolls grow faster and faster, flight director Doug Shane suggested Melvill cut short the engine burn, which had been planned for 80 seconds.

I knew he was never in any danger, Burt Rutan said after the flight. The pilot makes the call on what he does; the ground is advisory.

The cause of the roll remains under investigation, but there is nothing to fix on SpaceShipOne, he said.

Rutan designed the spaceship so that it could re-enter the atmosphere from any orientation -- upside-down, sideways, nose up or down -- and survive. He accomplished this by creating a moveable wing flap the pilot positions to increase atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a technique the team calls feathering. The maneuver allows the ship to right itself, much like a badminton shuttlecock.

When you end up with a high roll rate and you didn't plan to do it on a manned spacecraft, that's normally a very, very big deal, Rutan said. I mean, that would be an accident if it happened on the space shuttle or the X-15 (hypersonic research vehicle). No question, we would be looking for small pieces now.

Although SpaceShipOne is proving to be a robust vehicle, passenger spaceplanes will have to be even safer, he added.

Any system that will ever go out there and fly space tourists needs to be a hundred times or more safer than any manned spacecraft that has ever flown, he said.

The next-generation SpaceShipOne already is in planning stages. Virgin Airlines owner Richard Branson has licensed SpaceShipOne technology for the world's first commercial spaceliner, which he has named Virgin Galactic. Tourists will pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 for a ride aboard a five-to-seven-passenger craft that will be much more luxurious than SpaceShipOne, with bigger windows and other amenities.

Rutan said Mojave Aerospace Ventures -- the partnership he and Allen created to oversee SpaceShipOne and related programs -- also is considering four or five other business proposals.

As we march through and test (SpaceShipOne) and as we learn from it, and as we apply those lessons to the very big demands that we have in front of us ... we are extremely confident that we are going to be able to produce the first space tourism commercial spaceliner that will start out service with reliability significantly better than the first airlines had when they started decades ago, Rutan said. I really believe we are going to do that.

After the X-Prize flights, Rutan said he is considering several offers from potential clients, including government research agencies that want to use SpaceShipOne for experiments and other services. He also is considering decommissioning the craft and sending it to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where the Voyager airplane is displayed.

For now, though, the clock is ticking. The team has until Oct. 13 to makes its second required flight to claim the X Prize.

We are witnessing history here, said X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, It's important that we use the lessons of today to remember that if you dream and follow your passion, you can make those dreams happen.

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