Sir Richard throws down

Branson has thrown the gauntlet down, stating Virgin Galactic will launch its first passengers in just 30 months!
You can read about it here:
http://www.space-travel.com/news/tourism-05l.html

and here:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/tourism-05l.html

If you don't know what Virgin Galactic is, check out their Web site here:

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Branson intends to use a redesigned Spaceship One which will carry seven passengers. I believe that's five paying customers and two pilots, but I'm not sure. Unfortunately both the preceding stories were very light on design specifics. And don't count on the people at Scaled Composites to be forthcoming either. Their site is empty of information about upcoming ship designs. It's more of a montage of info about Spaceship One's successful shot at the X-Prize (http://www.xprize.org/home.php.)

You would think these guys would be desperate for attention of any kind. (I would be dragging my ship down main street of every town in America--but what do I know?)
Those Scaled Composites people are a fickle group, but they're also the best damn bunch of space scientists since von Braun gathered his "wild bunch" in the '50-s.
(ttp://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/history/VonBraun/SpaceAge.html)

Not everybody in the rocket business takes themselves so seriously. Some of us still have a sense of humor.
Like this guy:

http://www.rocketguy.com/

Despite his rather quirky site, it seems he might be tomorrow's space tycoon:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/brian_walker_031029.html

I guess only time will tell. And I can hardly wait.