Even as they embraced him as amiably as suburbanites welcoming a newcomer to the neighborhood, leading X Prize contenders had a message for Burt Rutan: Bring it on.



"Many people seem to be overreacting," says John Carmack, a computer-game legend (Doom, Quake) and founder of Armadillo Aerospace in Dallas. "Burt is somewhat further along than we had hoped. But we still feel we have a solid shot of getting there first."