Virgin In Space!

The one is a high school dropout who is investing at least $200 million for a fleet of suborbital passenger spaceships. He built the Virgin empire into a world brand. The Virgin logo is slapped in some of the most terrestrial places - music stores, cell phones, airlines, graphic novels, to name a few. A decade ago, Richard Branson trademarked Virgin Galactic with the hopes of ultimately flying the brand in space.

The other is the American engineer Burt Rutan, an aviation legend who made history by designing the SpaceShipOne prototype, a shuttlecock-shaped, hybrid rocket motor-powered craft that became the first private, piloted vehicle to reach space. Described by some as a genius, he has designed some 40 unique aircraft and now has his sights set on space. He has said he really wants to go to the moon before he dies.

Ever since the two teamed up, a rush of do-it-yourself players have angled to break into the fledgling space tourism market. But the polar opposite personalities have grabbed the spotlight, partly because of Rutan's track record and Branson's aggressive marketing.

They repeatedly said they a common main focus, safety, because a single fatal crash, after all, could bury the baby industry, Still, they have a different philosophy on publicity.

So far, any announcements on when the first customers might experience zero gravity has been one-sided, with details only trickling from Branson's Virgin Galactic camp.

Branson recently told a trade show in California that construction of the Rutan-designed SpaceShipTwo will be ready within a year, followed by another year of flight tests. If all goes well, Virgin officials say the spaceship will be unveiled by early next year with the maiden commercial launch in 2009.

Rutan, on the other hand, has been relatively silent. He would only confirm that he is designing SpaceShipTwo and the mothership aircraft that will launch it. Despite the buzz by Virgin Galactic, Rutan has not publicly released a schedule for completing work.

They have a secret base of operations in the Mojave Desert, (a seemingly favorite spot for burying secrets...), but it's closed to public and guarded as well as the other "mirage", Area 51, and both are determined to keep secrets away from the general public, and from each other: "We can't have NASA get a hold of it. There's no way I can let this program get out" said Tim Pickens, who was the chief propulsion engineer for SpaceShipOne. Employees couldn't even acknowledge the existence of the top-secret program under Rutan's orders.

The only information come from Virgin Galactic Web site, that promises amateur astronauts a spacious cabin to float around in and large portholes to coo at the curvature of the Earth. Initial flights will rocket out of the Mojave and later from a still-to-be-built spaceport in New Mexico where voters earlier this month narrowly approved a tax to support the project.

With prices momentarily unknown, but with knowledge that other space tourists paid around $20 million, it will definitely be the most exclusive Business Class ever.