By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – St. Louis played its own role in Wednesday's successful launch of the world's first private spacecraft.
The city is home to the X-Prize Foundation, the nonprofit group that could next week award $10 million to Scaled Composites, the team that flew Wednesday's mission and plans to repeat the launch on Monday.
Also, the St. Louis Science Center hosted more than 100 visitors who watched the launch. "The whole story of the X-Prize mission and the foundation is told here at the Science Center," said center spokeswoman Gretchen Jaspering.
"And I think people would be amazed to know how much time, energy and finances are going into making space flight for the rest of us feasible."
A team of meteorologists at the St. Louis Science Center monitored weather conditions at the launch site in California. Monday's planned launch falls on the 47th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik One, the world's first artificial satellite.