Slung below its equally innovative mothership dubbed White Knight, SpaceShipOne rides above planet Earth, photographed during a recent flight test. SpaceShipOne was designed and built by cutting-edge aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites to compete for the X Prize.

On June 21st, pilot Mike Melvill made a historic flight in the winged craft dubbed SpaceShipOne -- the first private manned mission to space. The spaceship reached an altitude of just over 62 miles (100 kilometers) on a suborbital trajectory, similar to the early spaceflights in NASA's Mercury Program. So, how was the view?

Human space flight has entered the domain of private companies. Previously, large countries like the US and Russia have hired privately owned civilian companies to do specific tasks in support of their public human space flight programs.