I figured this would pop up pretty quickly, heard about it earlier on am radio. Then thought, I wonder who the prize is sponsored by, check to find it's of your choice, which is good that you could hopefully pick a carrier with the better track record, or maybe the opposite, becomes a harder decision, we learn from failure, lets hope Virgin is "open" about the details so other competition won't have the same kind of problems.

These guys are also doing suborbital trips too : http://www.xcor.com/ you even get to sit next to the pilot up front!

Yeah, it's a terrible bummer. There is still a cash equivalent option though...