Personally, I have my eye on an even smaller jet, the rumored single-engine, four-seat pocket-rocket from Cirrus Design. (If the one engine fails, pull a lever and a parachute will float you and the plane to a soft landing.) One of the two brothers who founded Cirrus told me the Cirrus jet would go 300 knots, or 345 miles per hour.

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For Mr. Branson, the test flight met its most important goal: validating the rocket ship's design.

WSJ: Virgin Galactic Spacecraft Tests Its Rockets in Flight

The completion of the so-called System Requirements Review and System Definition Review allows program managers to proceed into the rocket's preliminary design phase, NASA officials said.

MSN: Giant deep-space rocket passes key test - Technology & science - Space - Space.com | NBC News

He was a Fulbright and his father Chauncey helped design the Saturn V rocket with Werner Von Braun.

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Early thinking is that this will be a smaller rocket than Ariane 5 with a modular design capable of lifting one satellite at a time weighing from three to 6.5 tonnes.

BBC: Ariane rocket ready to do battle

The firm, established by Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, has a design for a capsule and two-stage rocket.

BBC: US firms target astronaut flights