<blockquote>"Gamma-ray bursts come in two types – long and short. The physics are different depending on the system from which they originate."</blockquote>
You say GRB's can be long and short. How long in duration is each type of burst?
<blockquote>"In gamma-ray astronomy, the pictures aren’t very pretty – they’re not even meaningful unless you know what you’re looking at, so it’s hard to get the public excited about the kind of research high energy physicists do."</blockquote>
Given the relative obscurity of the field, has it been difficult to get funding for some of the high energy physics projects you have undertaken?
<blockquote>And if the mechanism for doing space research were to go away, if we went to a private enterprise model of commercial space exploration, how would that affect research? Is Virgin Galactic going to let me build a satellite? Are they interested in letting me look at x-ray stars or are they just interested in putting a space tourism center in orbit?"</blockquote>
While you would have likely had much less independence at Virgin Galactic, you would have received massive funding for a project that is of interest to them. Would you consider working for a company like Virgin Galactic if space exploration was privatized, or do you value your independence as a researcher more?