To say it was a media circus would be an understatement. Note this is not a Mary Kay Cosmetics convention (pink cars). Rather, the photograph was taken at sunrise. Sure I could have color corrected it, but then you wouldn't know how much everyone suffered to see this event.
Early? Yeah, well the landing lights were still on. Here is White Knight and Space Ship One taxiing by the crowd.
Logos on Space Ship One, something NASA would never do. Then again, the whole Space Ship One project costs less than the NASA coffee and donuts budget.
(click photo for a higher resolution photograph)
Robert Sheer's Starship, the high altitude chase plane.
This is probably the first 20 seconds of the rocket burn, which starts at about 50k ft..
White Knight flying gracefully over the crowd.
Space Ship One landing, with the "Extra" acrobatic plane and Alpha Jet following.
Victory pass.
Brian Binnie, the 2nd civilian astronaut. In this case, being number two ain't too shabby. This flag was flown into space, along with personal items from employees at Scaled Composites and Vulcan Ventures (Paul Allen's venture capital company).
Sir Richard Branson, Burt Rutan, and Paul Allen (left to right). It looks like Sir Richard slept in his clothes, just like those who camped out at the airport, but hey, that's cool.
