Originally Posted by donotdespisethesnake
I'm afraid to say "toy for the rich" is not far off the mark. That is not to belittle the engineering efforts of Burt Rutan, he is smart guy, but the programme will not amount to more than joyrides and very limited microgravity experiments.
Rutan retired from Scaled Composites in 2011. It is now a division of Northrop Grumman.
They have spent more than $400M on the project. It's not a half hearted effort.