TransOrbital: The Commercial Race To The Moon

apsmith writes: "Some of the companies that were preparing for a race to commercialize space and return to the moon (like Idealab's "Blastoff.com") have vanished with the stock market meltdown. But TransOrbital, a privately held company, is still plugging away, and claims to be on schedule for launch in the 4th quarter of 2001. The funding model seems to be generating lots of pretty pictures and selling them. Though for just $2500 you can also send your business card to the Moon!" Sounds like they've pushed their schedule a little bit since last mention, but considering the scope of the project, nearly any launch date would still be respectable.