A New York Times article Sunday about the special incentives and packages that credit card companies provide to their best customers includes a brief mention of a special Zero-G flight offered by American Express:

Some American Express Platinum cardholders looked behind the curtain of space flight last month with a zero-gravity flight on a modified Boeing plane in Orlando, Fla. At $6,500 a person, the chance to fly with the Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin proved so popular that American Express has added a second “go weightless” flight.

Given that a standard Zero Gravity Corp. flight goes for $3,750 plus tax, that’s a, um, hefty premium to pay to float with Buzz.

SPACE.com landed an exclusive interview with Burt Rutan, published back on Friday. By and large there’s not a lot new here: many of the comments he made here are similar to comments he has made in the past, such as at the ISDC in May. He revealed that one of his biggest concerns was potential investors getting cold feet, which is why he picked Richard Branson over some alternatives to develop SpaceShipTwo, despite Branson’s outspokenness. “He was selected as an investment source because he was very early telling everybody what he was going to do, and usually I’m against that. But he’s putting his reputation on the goal of this program… doing that on day one.”

Rutan also said that being able to experience weightlessness is “a close second” to getting the view of the Earth from space. That’s why SS2 will have a large cabin so people can float about during their four minutes in weightlessness. Also, the onset of gravity will be gradual, taking more than 40 seconds to reach 1-g; enough time, he feels to get passengers strapped in before they experience stronger accelerations during reentry.

Those reading Rutan’s comments closely will also pick up on his choice of words: “I’m focusing now on going ahead and doing something that I never did with airplanes. That is, not just do research but go ahead and build something that would be certified. Produce it and sell it to spacelines and let them go out there and compete with each other to fly the public.” Also: “That’s the reason we feel we’ll easily be able to certify people floating around and getting into a seat…more of a bed to lay flat.” Notice the use of “certified” and “certify”: suborbital spacecraft are licensed, not certified (something the FAA will take great pains to point out), although Rutan rarely hides his dissatisfaction with that approach, preferring aircraft-like certification to launch vehicle licensing.

Bigelow Aerospace surprised a lot of people late Friday when the company announced that it planned to “accelerate future plans” related to the series of experimental orbital modules it planned to develop and launch. Details were sketchy, and the company said it would only provide additional details early next year, when it launches its next spacecraft, Genesis 2. The company offered an odd mix of reasons for the change, including “the outstanding performance of Genesis I, the hoped-for adequate performance of Genesis II and various additional factors—including, but not limited to, domestic and international issues forecast over the next four to five years bearing upon America’s transportation and launch deficits.” I’m not exactly sure what a “launch deficit” is, unless that’s supposed to mean difficulty finding affordable launch options for its spacecraft.

One near-term result of this is that Genesis 2 will be the only mission opportunity for Bigelow’s “Fly Your Stuff” program, where people can pay to fly photos and items into space. This is an interesting turn of events, since when I talked with Robert Bigelow last month, he suggested that the program was a key experiment in generating revenue and public interest in his company’s work. “We are very involved with experimenting—and this is a grand experiment all of its own—with outreaching to the public,” he said. “We’re captivated by the adventure here, and part of the adventure is exploring whether the public is going to be interested.”