Burt Rutan

SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize last October when it became the first private craft to take a human into space twice in a two week period. The plane was designed by Burt Rutan and built by Rutan’s company, Scaled Composites Inc. SpaceshipOne’s technology has been licensed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, with flights scheduled to begin in 2007. Scaled Composites is famous for designing innovative and lightweight aircraft. In 1986, its Voyager aircraft became the first to fly around the world nonstop without refueling. The company repeated the feat earlier this year, but this time as a solo flight, with GlobalFlyer. Rutan is an advocate of space travel “for the rest of us,” and envisions a future in which people will have personal flight vehicles.