The race is on!!!

[Vansquish]

Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites has reached the first step towards winning the Ansari X-Prize which is a contest whose objective is to put a 3-person, privately-designed spaceship up to an altitude of at least 62 miles twice in the space of two weeks.

The prize, a cool 10 milion dollars.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...private_rocket

[RC45]

Rutan gained wide fame by designing the Voyager aircraft, which flew around the world nonstop and without refueling in 1986. Rutan hoped his latest program shows that spaceflight is not just for governments. "I believe that realization will attract investment and that realization will attract a whole bunch of activity and very soon it will be affordable for you to fly."

Human nature is pretty diverse - here these guys are trying the best to further mans horizons and seek commercially viable space flight for everyone...

...and then you have al Quaeda's cutting off peoples heads half a world away.

Now I wonder which group is actually promoting the prosperity of human kind and is more deserving of assistance and support?