Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites are all set to make Space history on Monday, as SpaceShipOne readies itself for it's maiden flight into outer space.
SpaceShipOne will start slung under its carrier airplane, White Knight, a jet-powered craft also designed by Rutan. The pair will circle slowly up to an altitude of 15,250 metres (50,000 feet), where SpaceShipOne will be released.
The pilot will then ignite the SpaceShipOne's hybrid rocket motor, which will burn for 80 seconds and should send the craft to at least 100 kilometres (62 miles) - the usual definition of the beginning of space. For three minutes or so, he will see the blackness of space and the gentle curvature of the Earth below, and will float in weightlessness.
Twenty minutes later, after plunging into the atmosphere like a shuttlecock, he will glide it to a landing on the same Mojave runway.
New Scientist is one of many news sources to carry this story.