The guy built a fancy plane that barely kissed what is technically defined as "space". He's never achieved orbit, which is an order of magnitude more difficult, and you're ready to say he can make it to Mars? I'm not arguing that NASA is efficient or anything, but they actually have a proven track record beyond Rutan's solitary stunt.
That being said, I do want private enterprise heavily involved in our space exploration. I'm just have not seen enough evidence to tell me that Rutan can even achieve orbit, let alone lead us to Mars.
Spiff, Excuse me for asking, but how much experience do you have in manned spaceflight or aerospace? Me I was in for 15 years - for calibration. I have seen personally what gold plated requirements do to program cost and schedule. Yeah, its early days for Rutan. He also has a proven track record of getting a lot done for minimal money. We need much more like that and a lot less like what I saw when I worked on NASA and DOD spaceflight/satellite programs.