IF YOU’VE GOT AN INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION, does that mean you’ve got an industry?

America’s top rivals in the private-sector space race are now on the same side, in a federation newly formed to advance their infant industry’s interests.

The Personal Spaceflight Federation, whose establishment was announced Tuesday, brings together a who’s who of space entrepreneurs, including SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, whose team won the $10 million X Prize last October, and video-game genius John Carmack, whose Armadillo Aerospace team was among the leading contenders for the prize.

Cool.