da Vinci launch date

OK! Time out, fellas! Time to kiss and make up.
I've nothing against JP Aerospace!..Let them keep launching
balloons to 100,000 ft.
As for the Da Vinci project group?
They have a small chance [not zero] of beating Scaled Composites
for the X-Prize.
............................Even if the Da Vinci group should lose, it's not the end of the world, the X-Prize isn't the end of the story. There's the X-Prize Cup to be won!................
Hey! They could use the emergency solid-rockets to ADD to their final velocity and climb to a new civilian "manned record altitude", perhaps
over 75 miles [120km] up.
What's wrong with that?...That would win Canada the X-prize Cup, and
land the Da Vinci group in the pages of "Guinness World's Records".

The X Prize we should remember is not the end-all, be-all .... it's just one of many incenatives to get private space travel off the ground and into orbit. The same thing would happen without the X Prize, no doubt, although perhaps a bit slower.

Please do not take me wrong, I think the X Prize is GREAT and am very thankful it's there. But there may be those working to launch private space missions who are driven by more important goals (to them) than by trying to fit in the X Prize framework. And that's okay. The more, the better.

--Ralph