September 29, 2004

2004Richard Sainct, French motorcycle racer (born 1970)^[†]

Richard Sainct was a French rally raid motorcycle rider, best known for his three victories on The Paris-Dakar rally in 1999, 2000 and 2003.

2004Patrick Wormald, English historian (born 1947)^[†]

Charles Patrick Wormald was a British historian born in Neston, Cheshire, son of historian Brian Wormald.

2004The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passes within four lunar distances of Earth.^[†]

4179 Toutatis is an elongated, stony asteroid and slow rotator, classified as a near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo asteroid group, approximately 2.5 kilometers in diameter. Discovered by French astronomer Christian Pollas at Caussols in 1989, the asteroid was named after Toutatis from Celtic mythology.

2004Burt Rutan's Ansari SpaceShipOne performs a successful spaceflight, the first of two required to win the Ansari X Prize.^[†]

Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. He also designed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest and longest nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.