OK!

So you may not be interested in working/collaborating
with "one" of us on Habitablezone.com...for "whatever reasons".

You may also feel a little "burned out" because financial
& bureaucratic obstacles are becoming barriers to any
space project you're working on.
I know the feeling.

But I [seriously] give you this technical challenge:

>Design a one-man space-capsule that's not a Max Faget 'clone'.
>Design the capsule for sub-orbital flights over 100 miles [160 km] up.
[Leave the 100km, 62.4 miles up, to those X-Prize 'tourists' who only
want to go up as paying-passengers, not paying astronaut-pilots]
>Design the same capsule to have a minimum of electronic,
electrical and mechanical systems.
>Design the same capsule so that it can be easily max-produced.
>Design the same capsule to be [relatively] inexpensive: no more
than 250,000 dollars to build. This will allow the "paying
astronaut" to purchase the capsule [at cost, or small profit] as his/her own property/souvenir to own upon completion of their suborbital flight. We've already witnessed a wealthy "space tourist" attempting [unsuccessfully] to buy the [Soyuz] capsule that took him into space.

>Design the capsule to be no more than 4.0 ft in diameter [The Mercury capsule was about 5.7 ft diameter, max] to keep drag-loss
to less than -300 meters/second during power-ascent.
Stretch your elbows! That's no more than 3 feet apart; four-foot
width is plenty of room for a 15 minute solo spaceflight.

>Design the same capsule to be no more than 2,500 Ibs fully-loaded.

You upto the challenge, Tom?...Or are you going to give me a
long-winded, wordy excuse not to?

Jacob