Q: The St. Louis-based X Prize Foundation has announced that 10 teams have registered to compete in the first private race to space. Could you shed some light on your plan to participate?

A: This [race] is extremely important and interesting, because I think it can [lead to] flight out of the atmosphere--just what the barnstormers opened up to flight in the atmosphere. It won't be done by NASA. And it won't be done by governments, and it won't be done by industry. It will be done by the barnstormers of space. That's what will let the common man fly out of the atmosphere. I think even suborbital flights--where you have 3 to 5 minutes of weightlessness--will be so much fun that it will be a profit-making tourism business. I have structured a plan, and a preliminary design, and a unique way at addressing the factors that make rockets dangerous, and eliminating those dangers. And if those guys put that money in the bank for the prize-winners to get, I'm going to go after it. Sure, why not?