Mike Melvill and SpaceShipOne

Mike Melvill celebrates after taking the SpaceShipOne to 368,000 feet in October 2004, in a feat that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize and thus marked the dawn of the commercial space flight era. It was a decidedly adventurous undertaking, hardly guaranteed of success, and indeed Melvill had to pull the spacecraft out of a significant and unplanned spin toward the apex of the flight.