On the day the world celebrated the centennial of flight, Dick Rutan and company were themselves high in the air over the California desert, testing a vehicle for the next century of aviation. It was a significant milestone for Scaled Composites in its bid for the $10 million X PRIZE: The first manned supersonic flight by an aircraft developed by a small company's private, non-government effort. Spaceshipone is Scaled's entry in the private space race -- the bid to become the first non-governmental manned flight into the nether reaches.

As 2003 draws to a close, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center researchers have completed a milestone series of evaluation flights for a revolutionary flight control system that could enable future aircraft suffering major system failures or combat damage to be flown to a safe, controlled landing. The Intelligent Flight Control System, aboard a highly-modified NASA F-15B, focuses on development of "self-learning" neural network software for aircraft control computers. In its final form, the software would compare data from how the aircraft and its systems are operating with a database of how it would normally operate, and automatically adjust the flight controls to compensate for any damage or inoperative control surfaces or systems.