Mike Melvill of Scaled Composites came to Bakersfield on Saturday to give a speech on behalf of their company about their latest test flights for commercial space travel and to honor his achievements. Melvill was awarded the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award.

Melvill was a test pilot for SpaceShipOne, the first ever civilian operated craft that has been able to leave the atmosphere and travel in space.

Melvill has broken nine FAI aviation world records for speed and altitude.

SpaceShipOne went over 62 miles in altitude breaking the sound barrier at Mach 3.

Melvill became the first commercial astronaut, the 433rd person to go into space and recently won the Ansari X Prize.

Many people are eager to take part in what could be the most groundbreaking form of civilian excursion.

“Space travel is available to anyone able to pay for it,” Melvill said when asked about the plans for SpaceShipOne.

Until recently, only government trained astronauts have been able to travel in space.

When asked about the feeling of weightlessness and seeing the world from space Melvill responded candidly, “it has changed my life.”

After numerous simulations it seemed that all was running well and they were ready for the first test launch. Once Spaceship One was in the air, all of the displays went out and it had to be landed manually.

Melvill reported, “one of the displays went out and I had to fly it by looking out the observation window.”

Although Melvill has been in space he has no aspirations of ever working for NASA, because he does not have any degrees that will allow it. Although Melvill and his team of ten work along side NASA and share information, he will never be an astronaut for NASA.

According to Melvill, Scaled Composites wanted to convey that it does not take a government to make everything possible. Melvill went on to say that it took will power and guts to make it and evidently a little luck. “We just got lucky,” said Melvill.

Two hundred tickets have already been sold for commercial space travel. The tickets have sold for $200,000 each. Mike estimates that eventually the tickets will cost around the same price as a car.

KUZZ news director Mark Howell said that possibly even within our lifetime commercialized space travel will be, within reason, affordable. Howell was awarded the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award last year.

Spaceship One is obviously going through more tests for something in the near future. When asked what was new with Spaceship One Melvill said, “nothing I can really talk about here.”