Theres a lot of great articles on Scaled Composites (both before and after they won the X prize) that describe the culture and what it was like to work there.
They seem very different from the "NASA" mentality, and much younger and more startup-focused. Very (extremely!) small team, given what they accomplished.
They also lost some people to some kind of test accident. I'm not saying this to point fingers, but to remind people that in aerospace, you're not dealing with. "Oops, I ran the wrong build configuration. I guess I'll just restart."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/space.html
They seem very different from the "NASA" mentality, and much younger and more startup-focused. Very (extremely!) small team, given what they accomplished.