"Dave Buckles" wrote in message
news:rj3Ob.4959$dd6.3784@lakeread02...

Well, Burt Rutan comes to mind (see also: Scaled Composites,
specifically SpaceShipOne). Or perhaps John Carmack (Armadillo
Aerospace). Or any of the other twenty-three teams (listed at
http://www.xprize.org/teams/teams.html) registered as competing for the
X-Prize (http://www.xprize.org).


Burt Rutan and the other X Prize competitors are attempting to do something
that was accomplished over forty years ago. I don't think launching humans
on suborbital spaceflights is particularly useful. If it was, I think NASA
would still be doing it. The X Prize has been compared to the Orteig Prize,
but when the Orteig Prize was announced nobody had flown nonstop between New
York and Paris.