Michael Melvill

Melvill flew SpaceShipOne to more than 62 miles above Mojave, California, reaching suborbital space and the highest altitude ever reached by a non-government aerospace program.

Melvill, a 63 year-old test pilot, is also the Vice President and General Manager of Scaled Composites, the company that designed and built SpaceShipOne and one of the most aggressive aerospace research firms in the world. Melvill has tested every aircraft designed by Scaled Composites, logging more than 7,000 hours of flight in 130 fixed-wing aircrafts and seven helicopters. His test flights have ranged from fighter jet prototypes to crop dusters and racing planes.

The SpaceShipOne program was funded by Paul Allen, Microsoft’s co-founder, in the amount of $20 million, in the hopes of spurring the development of private space tourism. Now, many believe that Melvill’s successful mission has opened a new chapter in aviation history, with private enterprise providing low-cost human space travel.

Melvill has set national and world records for altitude and speed in various classes of aircraft. In 1999, he was awarded the Ivan C. Kincheloe trophy for his work on the developmental high altitude flight testing of the model 281 Proteus. He is an associate fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Aircraft Owner’s and Pilot’s Association and the Experimental Aircraft Association.

A native of South Africa, Melvill attended Hilton College in Natal, South Africa. In 1967, he moved to the United States with his wife and began working with Mrs. Melvill’s brothers in a small tool-and-die company in Indiana. He became a U.S. citizen in 1972 and began to fly and build his own airplane from plans that Burt Rutan, the CEO of Scaled Composites, sold to the public. In 1978, the couple flew their plane to California to show Mr. Rutan their handiwork. Rutan was so impressed with their plane that he offered both of them jobs on the spot. Melvill and his wife Sally, have lived in Tehachapi, California ever since.