Burt Rutan
Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutanis an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two-week period. With his VariEze design, Rutan is responsible for popularizing the canard configuration...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEngineer
Date of Birth17 June 1943
CityEstacada, OR
CountryUnited States of America
As opposed to the first 44 years of manned spaceflight, ... the difference is people are going to know that it is for them.
You're going to be more creative, more innovative, and have a lot more ability to stumble into a big breakthrough.
There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky.
I think within the next two to three years there will be tickets available for sub-orbital flights,
Our hope is that this will be a benchmark ... for a lot more people to not only have fun but to reap the benefits that we believe might be there,
Just like when early airplanes were flying in 1910, we didn't know what the benefits are, but we were doing it because it was fun.
I absolutely have to develop a space tourism system that is at least 100 times safer than anything that has flown man into space, and probably significantly more than that.
I really thought he'd start this program, do the conceptual work, and move on. But he's like a kid in a candy store. He's having more fun than he ever has.
If you don't have a consensus that it's nonsense, you don't have a breakthrough.
In fact, it's more dangerous to fly in space in America now than it was earlier. It certainly is more expensive...more difficult. We've been relying on our taxpayer-funded research organization, Na Say, excuse me, NASA.
I'm not at all embarrassed that we're opening up a new industry that will likely be a multi-billion dollar industry that's focused only on fun, ... long lasting and significant for our nation.
I knew that the significance would be known and understood by everyone in 10 years. I'm extremely pleased to see it here this early.
A NASA-funded study estimates that if the price of a ticket to space approached $100,000, close to a million people would buy one. That's a $100 billion industry. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen gave me $20 million in startup funding to go after that market.