Business enters the space race

Mega-rich entrepreneurs are seizing lucrative opportunities to boldly go where only government agencies with hefty budgets have gone before … and beyond. Hartley Milner explores the burgeoning commercial space industry, its trailblazers, triumphs and troughs.As dawn breaks over California’s Mojave airport, White Knight, a jet-powered carrier plane, takes to the skies with a curious, cigar-shaped ‘parasite’ aircraft clamped to its belly. Whoops and cheers go up from among