Ultima? Oh, No, He's A Rocket Man

Richard Garriott, creator of Ultima and founder of Origin Systems, Inc., is in the news... the space news! CollectSpace reports that Garriott placed a winning bid of $15,540 for a small bronze rocket statue which flew aboard SpaceShipOne's recent commercial launch. I guess we know what happened to all the money we spent on Wing Commander III Premiere Editions! You can find an article detailing the purchase here. The statue now has a pair of historical connections: it was sculpted by Erik Lindbergh, grandson of the famous aviator, and Garriott himself is the son of an astronaut (Owen K. Garriott, one of NASA's Group 4 scientist-astronauts, flew as part of both the Skylab and Shuttle programs).