Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShip Two model.

$200k per trip.

What will be the rate of failure?

What are you chances of getting blowed up?

There are more than 200 people that have already signed up to fly on the SpaceShip Two. I wonder if Branson will fly on one of the early flights. I suppose owing to his nature that he will.

I mean I'm all for space travel and all that, but this is the FIRST commercial spacecraft.  I'm not sure I'd be all fired up to be part of the early adopter crowd in this space.  I think I would prefer to hang back with the pragmatists.

Wait until the statistics get boring and the price comes down a bit...juuuust a bit.

To paraphrase Austin Powers - "Yay Capitalism!"

I think there is a remarkable group of efforts going on right now in the world of space technologies.  And all of it is being spearheaded by private companies.  Not by huge governments.

Where NASA is struggling to set a roadmap and plan for hundreds of different missions, here we have small nimble private corporations creating solutions to problems.

Here is Armadillo Aerospace attempting to capture the Lunar Lander X-Prize.

They're sponsored by nVidia, which to me seems a cool corporate investment.

Google is in the act as well.

The next couple of decades could be very interesting.  I would like to wholeheartedly encourage the multitude of high-tech billionaires that read the Rivet to invest in the emerging private space race.

C'mon you already have 3 Ferraris, what's left?  How about a moon base.

Related articles: SpaceX Flight Review

This might be off-topic but the title of the article keeps it in. [and it also let's put a 7-of-9 picture on the site]

The premise of the article is that we, the capitalist/democratic/free-market west are the Borg.  But we don't compel assimilation.  We merely make all the alternatives less attractive than our way.

You can join and better the lives of you, your kids, your grandkids etc. or not join and basically get left in the dirt.  Your choice, we aren't forcing you.

But the decision becomes obvious.

Go read the whole thing.

What is our challenge as leaders in a Borg world? We should stop denying the obvious. We are taking over the world -- not because we want to -- we just can't help it. Our Borg stuff is just too good. Given the choice, most people will eventually vote Borg. We give them what they love. They will become part of us. We will all become more alike.

Resistance, while not futile, may be inevitably the wrong decision.

Great graphic showing the interdependency of partnerships and ownerships in the global automotive industry.  I wonder how convoluted the web of ownership/partnership/investment would be if we did it for the online world.