I had. I'd actually forgotten. Thanks to Boing Boing's guestbar blogger Todd Lappin for reminding me. Following links hither and yon I was reminded about Steve Bennett's Starchaser, who has been in the news, on and off, for building various large rockets and firing them off. More on him later.
Scaled Composite's SpaceShipOne looked very familiar to me, and I realised that it looks familiar because it could have flown from the pages of Dan Dare (fan-sites here and here). Frank Hampson's creation predicted so much space-related stuff, maybe they got the aesthetics right too...
Starchaser, on the other hand, are rather more English. Their rocket (trad big rocket approach) is quite cool, but their marketing is just out of this world: pictures of a Page 3 girl riding the rocket, in a Dr. Strangelove stylee. "I shit you not":http://www.starchaser.co.uk/index.php?view=gallerymichellemarsh.
I want you to imagine a spaceman, walking out to his rocket ship with a heffing great beer belly, and a copy of The Sun. Scratching his arse.
One giant leap.
