Early this morning, SpaceShipOne completed the first half of its quest for the Ansari X Prize prize (and $10 million). The Space Ship took off from an airport north of Los Angeles, CA at 7:12, and landed at 8:33 after reaching 2,000 feet higher than the target altitude of 62 miles.

In order to get the X prize, SpaceShipOne must make another sucessful flight. This flight is scheduled for October 4th, way before the 14-day deadline.

This small step for man is expected to be sucessful. In fact, a new company, Virgin Galactic (part of the Virgin Group), has already announced that they will be flying people into space in SpaceShipOne spacecraft as soon as 2007.