“I HATE ILLINOIS NAZIS.” That line, referenced below, is from the Blues Brothers movie.

The fancy car stunts in that movie were coordinated by George Koopman, who was a founder of an early commercial-space company, The American Rocket Company. Amroc was a pioneer in solid/liquid hybrid rocket engines of the sort used in SpaceShipOne to win the X-Prize.

Another founder of the American Rocket Company was Jim Bennett, now best known for his UPI columns and his new book, The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century. (Bennett’s book gets a nice review in this weekend’s Times Literary Supplement — I’ll post a link when it’s available online). Other space-movement bloggers include Rand Simberg and Dale Amon of Samizdata. Just a bit of background for those playing six-degrees-of-separation and wondering “how do these people know each other?”

UPDATE: Another blogger with a Burt Rutan connection. To which I should add that I was on the National Space Society Board of Directors with Buzz Aldrin, who’s a business partner of Rutan’s.