Burt Rutan is an exceptional human being, fellow pilot, engineer,
creative thinker, entrepreneur, and a fellow home builder.. I truly
admire this man... But let us not get carried away... His fragile,
epoxy composite, airframes will not attain orbital speed and then
re-enter into that 5400 degree cutting torch we call the atmosphere at
Mach 17.5... His machine is a shuttlecock... And like a shuttlecock is
light as a feather and popped straight up at low speeds....
Interesting and arresting to watch, and he and Branson just may make a
bunch of money off the idea - and more power to them... Shucks, I might
even buy a ride... But, putting a working load into orbit is a real
task requiring huge amounts of explosives and oxidizers and no amount
of blue sky pronouncements is going to change the laws of physics...
Slowng back down by atmospheric braking is always going to be a life
and death situation..

Now, we would be vastly further ahead had we spent a tiny fraction of
the cost of the orbiters on a fleet of cost effective, large capsules
of the general configuration of the Gemini's, et. al. lifted by
subsequent generations of the Saturn rocket, for moving loads into
orbit and the blunt capsule for bringing them back.. What should have
had wings is the lower stages of the booster, which would glide back to
a recovery area and land softly...

denny