First, it's cool that Burt Rutan will be involved in this program. I've been a big fan of his for 30 years, going all the way back to his VariViggen design. Burt thinks so far outside the box that he isn't even in the same county. He isn't exactly a newcomer to space, either. His company developed the wings on the Pegasus air-launched booster, among other things.

Second, I like the idea of hot-rodding existing engines. The F100 and F110 engine families have been around for a long, long time and are well proven. Injecting water and liquid oxygen at high altitudes to cool the air and increase its density is a good idea.

Third, at a cost of about $750,000 to put 286 pounds (130 KG) into a low inclination LEO, it's still pretty expensive per pound. However, a lot of that cost is probably associated with the throw-away avionics (guidance, telemetry, range tracking) and attitude control system. If the concept works, there seems to be reasonable growth potential over the next several years. They could eventually migrate to F119 engines as they become more available. That might require a new aircraft, but Burt can handle that part quickly and efficiently. The avionics cost probably wouldn't increase with a higher payload system (and may even decrease), so the cost per launch could well be fairly constant while the payload increases. Sweet.