Space Ship One

For anybody that doesn't know, today is the first proper attempt at a piloted private commercial space launch. It's the launch of Space Ship One (http://www.scaled.com/), a contender for the Ansari X-Prize (http://www.xprize.org/)

It's taking place in the Mojave Desert and I believe that CNN will be covering it live. It's planned to happen at 06:30 PDT.

Although it's not going to win the X-Prize (to win that you have to have 3 people in it and do it twice in 2 weeks using the same craft), if successful, this will mark the beginning of a new era in space flight, bringing the prospect of commercial space travel so much closer. Yay!

Yes, I am excited! Wish I could be in Mojave to witness it. Hopefully CNN in Europe will also be showing it live.

It's a truly awesome achievement, and I must doff my hat to the guys involved in it. I reckon they should sack their PR agency though, I wonder how many suited execs it took to come up with the name of the vehicle.

If you're in the UK and have Satellite, BBC News 24 are covering the launch live. It's on the runway at the moment, you've got about an hour through before it seperates from the plane that first takes it up.

Thanks for the heads up. I knew it was today but I wasnt sure if there would be TV coverage. *turns on the TV*

If you're not near a TV go to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

On the right there's a Watch/Listen section with a button to a Real Media stream of the launch live