X Prize launch countdown: SpaceShipOne is at T - 9 hours and counting...

Today at 9 a.m. Eastern time, Bert Rutan's SpaceShipOne will lift off from the Mojave Civilian Flight Test Center, carried by a wispy mother aircraft known as White Knight.

If the ship makes it into suborbital space, 62 miles above the earth's surface, and then does it again within two weeks, Rutan and his team will claim the $10 million Ansari X Prize, to be awarded to the first civilian entrepreneur who can put three people or the equivalent weight into suborbital space.

The site's got tons of other information about things space flight-related.

You can watch the entire event live here at the X Prize website.