Yesterday The New York Times published a story about Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipTwo:
Burt Rutan took the cloak off of his new spacecraft on Wednesday.
Mr. Rutan, the creator of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed craft to carry a human into space, traveled to New York to show detailed models of the bigger SpaceShipTwo and its carrier airplane, WhiteKnightTwo. …
Officials at the press conference said that the WhiteKnight aircraft is 70 percent complete and that SpaceShipTwo is 60 percent complete. Test flights of the planes could occur this year. Passenger flights are not expected to begin before late 2009 or 2010.
This is a modest step toward commercial space exploration, but it is an important step. While I probably won’t be able to afford a seat on any of Rutan’s crafts, I’ll cheer on those who can. “You can’t take the sky from me.”