posted 03-22-2026 06:25 AM               

Space Cover 850: Remembering Mike Melvill

Mike Melvill, the first commercial astronaut, passed away just a few days ago on March 19, 2026. The postcard above was postmarked at Mojave, CA on the day that he first flew into space, June 21, 2004, flying SpaceShipOne (SS1). The card was later autographed by Melvill and flown on the final SS1 spaceflight on October 4, 2004 (in the hands of pilot Brian Binnie). A set of three of these cards were sold by Tonya Rutan (wife of Scaled Composites designer Burt Rutan) for $75 after that third and final spaceflight on Oct 4. This one is #118 of the 199 flown.

Melvill had piloted eight of the first 14 test flights of Scaled Composite's SS1 test flights. On Flight 15, June 21, 2004, the team went for the Karman line, the arbitrary boundary of space, 100 km altitude, and just barely surpassed it by 0.1 km, making Melvill the first privately funded astronaut! And this flight wasn't easy – SpaceShipOne rolled one way, then the other after release from its' mother plane (White Knight) and Melvill fought more attitude control problems all the way through ascent on this suborbital flight. But at perigee, he had time to open a bag of M&M's candies and show them floating around the cabin of SS1 in zero-gravity. And then he brought SS1 in for a perfect landing at Mojave. During re-entry the tailcone on SS1 buckled from heating, and that dent is still visible as SS1 is honorably on display today at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Two months later, on September 29, 2004, Melvill and SS1 again broached the Karman line, this time at an altitude of 102.9 km, making Melvill a two-time astronaut. This flight was also the first of two that won Scaled Composites the Ansari X-Prize for doing two commercial human flights above the Karman line in quick succession (the second was performed by Binnie on October 4, 2004).

So, let's give tribute to the late Mike Melvill, the world's first commercial astronaut! If you have favorite SS1 and/or Mike Melvill covers, please post 'em!

posted 03-24-2026 10:49 AM               

Below are images of an unflown X Prize Flight 1 card nicely signed and inscribed by pilot Mike Melvill. It's canceled on September 29, 2004, the date that he flew the SS1 on the first of two sub-orbital flights required to win the X Prize competition.

The other cover is signed and inscribed by him with the date, June 21, 2004, and the altitude he achieved in becoming the first commercial and privately funded pilot to reach space.