Corky Scott wrote:

Tell me again what the point is in being lobbed into near space?

Well, I grew up reading Heinlein, Asimov, Blish, and the like. *We* were going
into space. Not some government clowns - *we* were going. Space stations would
be built by union tradespeople. Entrepreneurs would build shipping companies
that flew rockets.

Then NASA came along. During the 70s, they worked very hard at preventing any
private enterprise in space, and they very effectively killed that dream. For
thirty years. If someone needed a carpenter in space, NASA would hand a hammer
to one of their astronauts, but *we* weren't going anywhere.

It's too late for Rutan to make that dream live again for me, but he's made it
possible for my stepson. And my nephew.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.