Spaceship guru looks over the horizon - Space.com - MSNBC.com: "MOJAVE, Calif. - As you stroll through the desert airport/spaceport here, you don’t see a “Keep Out! Spaceliner Under Construction” sign. On the other hand, there’s a palpable feeling that behind closed hangar doors, the future of public space travel is, indeed, a work in progress — and in good hands.

At Scaled Composites — home of the privately financed and built SpaceShipOne that made a trio of piloted suborbital flights in 2004 under the rubric of Tier 1 — the fabrication of a fleet of passenger-carrying space planes and huge carrier launch planes is under way. This activity is labeled Tier 1b."