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Rich Guys and Rockets

Is ex-Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen backing Rutan? More on the Silicon Valley connection

After innovative aircraft designer Burt Rutan unveiled SpaceShipOne and the White Knight, the tandem he hopes will win the X Prize, there was speculation that billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen provided the seed capital. Employees at Allen's investment company, Vulcan Ventures, won't comment on his involvement, and representatives of Rutan's Scaled Composites have stayed mum. But Allen would actually be conspicuous by his absence from the New Space Race, given the stream of other Silicon Valley and Seattle high-tech moguls rushing in to stake their claim to outer space.

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November 2009: Astronaut 3.0

Inside NASA's astronaut bootcamp and the grueling new training regimen for deep space. Plus, ten young geniuses shaking up science today, one writer's quest to analyze every man-made chemical in her body and more.

Check out the issue's full contents online here

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