Hi SM,

Yes, 17 million can build a certain level of rocket company and in the heady late nineties 17 million could quickly be turned into many times that amount.

My focus was upon a company that can further push man's ability to reach into space and extract data, travel or even colonize.

Raoul is right in saying that it is the technology that needs to be pursued. Rockets will only go so far. Atomic power goes faster and farther but still has inherent limitations.

There are a few electromagnetic research companies I have been watching and I feel the next big leap in launch technology will revolve around electromagnetic forces and using the earth's own emf as a repulsive field, so that huge, heavy ships can be catapaulted into space in measured quantities by field interaction and polarity oscillation (I.e. speed of acceleration is controlled by timing the amount of time your emf field is one polarity or the opposite)

This is what the DOD has been working clandestinely on in many forms and what would revolutionize propulsion as we know it. The thought of enemy EMF propelled missiles keep some folks in Arlington up at nights.

The potential for a missile not just to be guided, but hover and be reguided and not run out of fuel is indeed a frightening prospect.

If the private sector could patent these technologies without having been achieved on a government contract or support - the world will likely be better off and spaceships will be loitering around the galaxy within 100 years.

If not...well our DOD satellites will be roaming around with some kicka-- technology and we will be watching re-runs of Gilligan's Island and feeling just as stranded. ;-)

Best wishes,

SDAI-Tech1