-- Sent from my Palm Prē

-- Sent from my P

Just want to let you know the past few days have been unreal! I met the two test pilots who will put Spaceship 2 through all the test flights. One is from Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan's company) and the other is from Virgin Galactic. Both have amazing credentials and are seasoned veterans. We were also briefed on US rules and regulations that sounded like alphabet soup to me. I learned about ITAR (to monitor weapons, terrorism, etc) which has to do with anything exported by the US and SDN, a project of the Treasury Department and OFAC or ABCDEFG!!! The Executive Director of Spaceport America spoke as did his Virgin Galactic counterpart. Tonight we learned about US initiatives for different types of space programs related to military defense and future projects such as orbital solar panels. We also discussed other companies role in this new era of space exploration and how all of these projects will provide data that will lead to the next step---routine use of orbital flights for consumers and payload.

I could go on and on. Bottom line---it finally hit me---this is not just Richard Branson's novelty; this is serious business. Sometimes, I think I start buying into people's skepticism and I forget how very real all of this is. We are pioneers in a whole new industry---consumer space tourism and private space exploration and commerce. I have become a pending member of the International Organization for Space Tourism and Commerce and will probably attend the first symposium for it in July, 2010.