From a dry lakebed at the Mojave Air and Space Port, a strange, needle-nosed aircraft named the EZ-Rocket took off under rocket power. In its cockpit, test pilot Dick Rutan carried a payload of about 200 pieces of commemorative U.S. Mail. The date was December 3, 2005. The flight, conducted by the private firm XCOR Aerospace, lasted about ten minutes and reached an altitude of roughly 3,000 feet before gliding back to a landing. Upon touchdown, the mail was transferred to a waiting postal truck. The United States Postal Service officially sanctioned the event, declaring it the first crewed rocket aircraft delivery of mail.
The stunt was a publicity gambit with a serious subtext. XCOR, like many other small aerospace startups in the mid-2000s, was attempting to prove the viability and practicality of reusable rocket technology for private enterprise. By partnering with the USPS, they aimed to lend an air of mundane legitimacy to rocket flight, framing it as a potential future tool for logistics, not just government space exploration or tourism. The mail itself was philatelic—first-day covers meant for collectors—ensuring the flight would turn a profit.
This event is a footnote in aerospace history, overshadowed by the later successes of companies like SpaceX. Its obscurity is part of its charm. It represents a specific moment of optimistic, slightly eccentric experimentation in the commercial space sector, before the industry consolidated around billionaires and large launch vehicles. The EZ-Rocket itself was powered by two reusable rocket engines that burned isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen. The flight did not change the world, but it punctured the solemnity of rocketry, suggesting a future where a rocket could be as ordinary as a mail plane. That future has not arrived, but for ten minutes over the Mojave, it seemed plausible.