Virgin Galactic, the company founded by Richard Branson to commercialize Rutan's spacecraft designs, is sometimes dinged by critics as technically irrelevant. They say that suborbital hops above the atmosphere are a sideshow distraction compared to the real challange of getting humans into orbit. But Rutan argues that, from a technical point of view, flying tens of thousands of passengers over 10-to-12 years will do two things: mature safety systems, making spaceflight much cheaper; and reduce costs dramatically.