John Landis, film director William Readdy, astronaut At 06:09, shortly before planned takeoff, spectators were told to stay at the spaceport after the flight, to hear a "major announcement" about the future of the X PRIZE Foundation. As of October 4, 2004, it appears that no such announcement was actually made. Spectator reaction was more muted than for SpaceShipOne flight 15P, the first SpaceShipOne flight to have spectators, which was also the first privately funded human spaceflight. Later flights To win the X PRIZE, a spacecraft must make two successful competitive flights within 14 days. With this flight on September 29, 2004, successful, a second spaceflight had to follow by October 13, 2004, in order to win. Scaled Composites scheduled the second competitive flight, flight 17P, for October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, and it was completed successfully on schedule. There was a possibility of a third competitive flight (18P) occurring by October 13, 2004, if either of the first two flights failed, but in the end this was not required. The da Vinci Project, another X PRIZE contender, planned to make its first competitive flight on October 2, 2004, but encountered problems and had to delay its flights. External links Wired News: SpaceShipOne Back on Course Go for launch! X PRIZE Foundation announces teams ready to compete for $10 million Spaceflight Now contemporaneous report SPACE.com: Tense Moments During Trailblazing Private Space Flight SPACE.com: SpaceShipOne Was Not Out of Control, Builder and Pilot Say :: Discovery Channel CA :: (summary and video of the flight) BBC News: SpaceShipOne set to take X-Prize SPACE.com: SpaceShipOne Rolling Rumors: Rutan Sets the Record Straight Spaceflight Now: Rutan explains SpaceShipOne rolls SpaceShipOne Scaled Composites Tier One program Suborbital human spaceflights 2004 in spaceflight