rutan has said that ideas about the project began as early as 1994. the full-time work towards the 2004 accomplishments took about three years. the vehicle first flew faster than the speed of sound on december 17, 2003. this date was also the one-hundredth anniversary of the wright brothers' historic first powered flight. spaceshipone's first official spaceflight, was piloted by mike melvill. a few days before that flight, the mojave air and space port was the first commercial spaceport licensed in the united states. a few hours after that flight, melvill became the first licensed u.s. commercial astronaut. the overall project name was "tier one". it has evolved into tier 1b with a goal of taking a new, but similar ship's first paying passengers into space within the next few years.