“SpaceShipOne was a suborbital air-launched spaceplane that completed the first manned private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service. Its mothership was named “White Knight”. Both craft were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company. Allen provided the funding of approximately US$25 million”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A chase plane follows SpaceShipOne after it reached a height of 62 miles in the first non-governmental flight to leave the Earth's atmosphere on June 21, 2004 in Mojave, California. SpaceShipOne spacecraft was carried to a height of 50,000 by the twin-turbojet high-altitude research aircraft, “White Knight”, where it was launched for its final climb. The space effort was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and headed by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan. (Photo by Jim Campbell-Pool/Getty Images)

Russian support personnel work to help get Expedition 29 crew members out of the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum, and Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa on November 22, 2011 outside of the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. NASA Astronaut Fossum, Russian Cosmonaut Volkov and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Astronaut Furukawa are returning from more than five months onboard the International Space Station (ISS) where they served as members of the Expedition 28 and 29 crews. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)

As part of FLAIR Melbourne – a Flinders Lane art festival – Melbourne’s Lisa Minogue presents stylised photographic portraits of Australian women of colour, their faces painted vibrantly to accentuate their individuality and encourage the viewer to study each face more closely. Minogue asked each woman the same question: “What do the words “coloured girl” mean to you?”. (Photo by Lisa Minogue/The Guardian)

A Kurdish girl celebrates Newroz Day, a festival marking spring and the new year, in Akra, Iraq March 20, 2016. Nowruz is the name of the Iranian New Year also referred to as Persian New Year which is celebrated worldwide by Iranian peoples, along with some other ethno-linguistic groups. Nowruz is the day of the vernal equinox, and marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day, depending on where it is observed. Although having Persian and religious Zoroastrian origins, Nowruz has been celebrated by people from diverse ethno-linguistic communities for thousands of years. (Photo by Ari Jalal/Reuters)

Howard Jackson, a Liberian migrant, poses for a portrait in the Andalusian capital of Seville, southern Spain March 7, 2016. Jackson escaped civil war and spent three years crossing Africa before reaching Spain. Dressed up in one of his more than 200 costumes, from Peter Pan to Little Red Riding Hood, he is a well-known figure at an intersection entering the Spanish city of Seville where he has sold tissues to motorists for over a decade. Jackson is studying law and wants to become a judge. (Photo by Marcelo del Pozo/Reuters)

A visitor looks at portraits of Mao Zedong amid his statues on display at a wholesale souvenir store in Shaoshan, Hunan Province in central China, 28 April 2016. Shaoshan is the hometown of former Communist leader Mao Zedong, popularly known as Chairman Mao. Thousands of visitors descend on this small Chinese town burrowed in the hills of Central China's Hunan province to pay homage to the “Great Helmsman” everyday. It is one of the core sites of the “Red Tourism” industry, where communist party cadres and ordinary Chinese tourists alike seek to relive the experiences and rekindle the spirit of the revolutionaries. (Photo by How Hwee Young/EPA)

In this January 8, 2015 photo, a monk Kenmyo Muta bows at the condominium construction site and the gate of Sengakuji temple in Tokyo. The “47 ronin” samurai who inspired the long-loved saga of loyalty and honor eulogized in films, books and plays are fighting a new kind of battle in urban Japan. An apartment complex is going up next to the curved tile-roofed Sengakuji temple where the three-century-old graves of the ronin, or masterless samurai, lie. The banner reads: “We only hope to protect landscape of Sengakuji temple”. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)