Michael Winston "Mike" Melvill (born November 11, 1940) is one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first commercial astronaut and the 435th person to go into space. He was also the pilot on SpaceShipOne's flight 16P, the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize c...
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Michael Winston "Mike" Melvill (born November 11, 1940) is one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first commercial astronaut and the 435th person to go into space. He was also the pilot on SpaceShipOne's flight 16P, the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition.
Melvill was born in Johannesburg in South Africa before his family moved to Kloof near Durban. He attended Highbury Preparatory School and Hilton College. Later on Melvill moved to the United States from England in February 1967 and became a U.S. citizen in 1972. Melvill is married; he and his wife Sally have two sons and four grandchildren.
Melvill met Burt Rutan when he showed Rutan the Rutan VariViggen he had built at his home. Melvill was, having retired in October 2007, the vice president and general manager of Scaled...
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