Armadillo Aerospace: Space Access 2007

After making a comfortable fortune designing the wildly popular computer games Doom and Quake, John Carmack focused his attention and financial resources on a grassroots spaceflight effort called Armadillo Aerospace. From humble beginnings, this all-volunteer team has managed to create some spectacular vehicles, culminating in Pixel, a rocket-powered vertical-takeoff-and-landing demonstrator which flew at last fall's XPrize Cup in New Mexico. (Video copyright Armadillo Aerospace) "Real experience isn't gained by running computer simulations and doing paper studies. You get it by actually building and testing things." -- John Carmack ...