The Rocket Man Who Wants To Beat the Billionaires

_Tombstone_

A Rocket that can fly 10 times in 10 days at Mach 10, can carry payloads of 3000 pounds with vertical landing/take off for €5mil.

Dave Masten stares at his computer screen, finger poised over the mouse button. He knows that opening this email, sent by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's advanced technology lab, will change his life. One way or the other.

This email is the fulcrum of his future. It is either an acceptance letter or a rejection letter for his company's proposal to build what DARPA calls XS-1: an experimental unmanned space plane

Being rejected would mean the status quo: toiling in the desert in continued obscurity, with a thin profit margin and languishing dreams of building orbital spacecraft. It would also be the loss of a rare opportunity. Historically, government launch programs favored—if not outright mandated—spacecraft that could return to Earth on a runway or under parachutes. But Masten's rockets use a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing design—no runway or parachute required. The XS-1 program allowed for this design. There was no telling if the government would continue the allowance for future launch programs. This could be his only chance.

One email, two roads. One leading straight to space.

Double-click.

Masten reads slowly and deliberately. Then he turns to the engineers gathered near his desk, nonchalant, and says: "I've got some good news and bad news.

Oooh, did he get funding, oooh, click here to find out.:p