Does Binnie get a bonus?

Congratualtions to Brian Binnie, who piloted SpaceShipOne on a suborbital flight today to win the coveted $10 million Ansari X Prize. Binnie becomes only the second private sector pilot to earn astronaut wings for his trip:

With pilot Brian Binnie at the controls, SpaceShipOne rocketed to an unofficial height of 368,000 feet, setting a new altitude record for the craft and proving that private industry can build a viable vehicle for sending paying passengers to space.

Winning the X Prize means that Scaled Composites may actually be showing a profit with SpaceShipOne. Development costs are reportedly between $20-30 million, and a couple of weeks ago the technology was licensed to Virgin Galactic for $21 million or so. I'd say Astronaut Binnie is a popular guy with the Scaled Composites accounting department today.

But what of the other competitors for the X Prize? Well, the Canadian da Vinci group insists it will continue to work toward a launch of its Wildfire rocket:

Brian Feeney, who leads a rival X Prize effort called the da Vinci group, wished the SpaceShipOne team well this morning just prior to the flight, and he vowed not to stop his own effort.

"Even if the prize is won today, we will fly," Feeney told SPACE.com. "We're moving our program as fast as we can. We'll announce a launch date in a short period of time.

And of course, there's the brave, rebuilt mannequin Stevie Austin, who's leading the intrepid team of rocket scientists heading up Space Transport Corporation. Keep 'em flying, guys.

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