One New Zealander is really looking forward to taking a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic. How much? The New Zealand newspaper The Press reports that he recently changed his name to “Mark Rocket”. Seriously. (Mr. Rocket would not disclose his previous name.) He is apparently one of Virgin Galactic’s “Founders”, the elite group of 100 that will get the first rides on SpaceShipTwo. As part of his status, he attended the ISDC in Los Angeles earlier this month with a number of other Founders, and also got a look at the development of SS2 at Scaled Composites. “I guess I’m just a real space nut,” he admitted. You don’t say.
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick a bit, Jeff. I actually changed my name back in 2000, so the Virgin Galactic flight has had nothing to do with it.