When the winners of the Ansari X Prize receive their $10 million cheque for being the first private company to send an astronaut into space twice in two weeks, it could well have XL Capital chief executive officer Brian O?Hara?s signature on it.

That?s because the founders of the prize did not actually put the money up for it ? Bermuda-based XL did.

SpaceShipOne won the prize on Monday when astronaut Brian Binnie took the space craft through the atmosphere and landed safely. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported last month that in 2000, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis was having trouble raising the funds for the prize ? the organisation was actually $1 million in debt.

In early 2001, Diamandis and a friend came up with the idea of buying an insurance policy instead of raising the money.

?The deal would work like a hole-in-one policy for a golf tournament,? the newspaper said. ?The X Prize organisation would pay a premium upfront, and if someone won, the insurer would provide the $10 million. The insurance company was betting that the X Prize could never be won. Bermuda-based insurer XL Capital took the wager. The firm required regular payments of $50,000 to $100,000 from Diamandis and a deadline in 2003 for someone to make it to space, a date that later was extended to January 1, 2005.

?It was a risky move. The contract with XL stipulated that if Diamandis missed even one premium payment, the deal was off and the firm got to keep whatever had been paid in.?

Even then, Mr. Diamandis had trouble meeting the deadlines for the premiums until shortly after September 11, 2001, he read about a dot- com millionairess who wanted to ?see stars?. Dallas resident Anousheh Ansari, 35, had cashed out of of a telecommunications business for $180 million and by May 2002 had joined what was now the Ansari X Prize board.

?Six months later, the premiums were all paid and the $10 million was in place,? the newspaper said. ?No one would say how much the Ansaris ponied up to get their name on the prize, but tax documents show that in 2002, the X Prize organisation had raised $2.6 million in contributions.?

MSNBC reported last night that XL Aerospace?s representative on the judging committee signed off on SpaceShipOne?s Ansari X Prize requirements ? and presumably will stand behind the award once the altitude figures are fully documented.