This idea isn't a bad one. In case anyone is interested, the most successful private space company so far is SpaceX, started by a co-founder of PayPal. It recently (December 2008) won a contract from NASA to resupply the ISS. I believe the X is because the goal of the founder is to improve the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 10.
From their mission statement: "Our mission is very simple. We are working towards launching a human being into space.
This is a non-profit suborbital space endeavor, based entirely on sponsors and volunteers."
They've done a number of successful booster tests and are well on their way to the goal.
http://www.spacex.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX