I will venture to guess that Rutan's designing/building/test flying of this plane costs magnitudes less money than buying a 747 and then installing tanks and modifying it. Sure, a billionaire is funding the flight but there's no fun in using a 747.
Sorry for the late response...I've been offline for a week and just saw this thread.
RE: "I will venture to guess that Rutan's designing/building/test flying of this plane costs magnitudes less money than buying a 747 and then installing tanks and modifying it. Sure, a billionaire is funding the flight but there's no fun in using a 747."
Yeah those are good points and Rutan's forte is his ability to do minimalist designs. Like I said in my original post, I was probably being a spoil sport.
But, if I was the pilot, I'd sure feel a lot safer in a 747 that could do the trip in under 40 hours rather than Rutan's design which will take 70 hours and who's airspeed will need to be carefully monitored (the wing design he uses is very efficient, but the penalty is that the cruise speed is very close to the stall speed).