A few people held up banners and signs, and one in particular caught Melvill's eye -- SpaceShipOne, Government Zero -- a reference to the vehicle that carried a business to the final frontier and the fact it was built without a dime of public funds.

Instead, SpaceShipOne and its jet carrier aircraft, White Knight, were brought to life because of the largesse of one of the wealthiest people in the world -- Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen -- who has turned his interest in science and technology into a nursery for visionary projects that include a radioastronomy search for extraterrestrial intelligence and a Seattle, Wash., museum dedicated to science fiction.

I try to do the things that should be done, said the soft-spoken Allen, who emerged from a secretive role as SpaceShipOne financier to share the limelight with Melvill and legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan during the ship's debut flight in space Monday morning.

The joyous journey was tempered by a serious equipment problem that left the team thankful Rutan had thought to include a backup system.

At the highest point of the flight, Melvill tried to maneuver the ship's nose to boost his altitude a bit further, but the horizontal wing flaps failed to level in sync, leaving him in danger of losing control. Melvill locked down the balky system and used backup methods to orient the ship, re-enter the atmosphere and glide to a photogenic three-point landing.

This was not a perfect flight, Melvill told reporters. The backup saved the day.

Traveling at nearly three times the speed of sound -- more than 2,000 miles per hour -- Melvill was moving faster than a bullet fired from an M16 rifle.

You get the feeling that if you did something wrong you could really hurt yourself, he said.

The problem with the flight control system followed an earlier glitch that caused the ship to roll 90 degrees to the left, then 90 degrees to the right just after the rocket motor ignited. Rutan said the team did not yet know if the two problems were related.

The immediate effects on the program were to delay plans for an initial run at the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million purse offered by a non-profit foundation for the first team to fly a privately built, three-passenger spaceship to the sub-orbital altitude of 100 miles (62 kilometers), then repeat the flight within two weeks.

If this flight today had been perfect, we had planned for the next one to be an X Prize flight, Rutan said.

Although SpaceShipOne made altitude, it did not carry the required weight of three people. For the competition, the ships can fly with extra passengers or ballast equivalent to two 198-pound people.

Despite the difficulties, the flight left Melvill and colleagues at Scaled Composites absolutely glowing about their achievement. Melvill described the view from space as almost a religious experience.

The colors were pretty staggering looking from up there. It's an awesome thing to see the curvature of the Earth. I could see all the way back to the coastline and I could see all the way to San Diego. You get a hell of a view from 62 miles, said Melvill, who was awarded the first pair of astronaut wings by the Federal Aviation Administration, making him, officially, the country's first private astronaut.

You really do get the feeling that you've touched the face of God when you do something like this, he said, referring to the poem, High Flight, composed in 1941 by John Gillespie Magee Jr., an American serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

There were a few people among the thousands gathered at Mojave Airport to watch the flight who know first-hand what Melvill means. Four-time NASA astronaut Scott Horowitz called the flight absolutely fantastic.

Hopefully this will break open a whole new industry, Horowitz told United Press International.

The goal of the SpaceShipOne program, as well as the efforts of the 26 other teams competing for the Ansari X Prize, is to create space travel services for the public.

We congratulate the SpaceShipOne team and wish all those who may follow safe flights, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said in a statement.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of by United Press International.

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