For those who have not seen it, SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X-Prize this morning.

This, to me, is huge. When I first heard of the X-Prize, I thought there was only an outside chance that it would be claimed by 2010. I figured that the chances of commercial space travel were remote in my lifetime; now, Sir Richard Branson has expanded his Virgin empire to include Virgin Galactic, already signing up passengers for flights in 2007.

Wow.

Personally, I'd like now to see follow-on prizes for the first commercial craft to do a full orbit in space and an orbit around the moon.