Mike Melvill
Michael W. Melvill (born November 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.
Originally from Durban, South Africa, Melvill moved to the United States from England in the 1970s and became a U.S. citizen. Melvill is married; he and his wife Sally have one son and four grandchildren.
Melvill is the vice president and general manager of Scaled Composites, LLC; he has 24 years of experience as a test pilot, and has logged nearly 7000 hours in over 130 types of aircraft. A longtime acquaintance of Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan, Melvill has flown the first flights of nine of Rutan's aircraft. Melvill also helped develop the docking system for SpaceShipOne.
Melvill is an associate fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots; in 1999, he received their Ivan C. Kincheloe trophy for his work in high-altitude development testing the 281 Proteus aircraft. Melvill also built his own Long EZ aircraft, which he flew around the world with Dick Rutan in 1997. He is also the only person other than Dick Rutan or Jeana Yeager to have piloted the Voyager aircraft.
Melvill was the pilot for SpaceShipOne flight 15P, SpaceShipOne's first spaceflight and the first privately-funded human spaceflight mission, on the morning of June 21, 2004. In a ceremony two hours after landing, Melvill was awarded his astronaut wings, the first person to earn them for a spaceplane flight since the X-15 flights of the 1960s.
