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Burt Rutan Chides NASA for Dullness, Says Space should be Fun

White Knight mated with the X-37. Photo Courtesy of Mojave Books

This should be titled: Burt Rutan: How to ensure you never get a dime of government grant money ever again, and why thats not necessarily a bad thing either.

Favorite Quote:
As for detractors that point out that the fledgling space tourism industry is only offering up sub-orbital joyrides for the wealthy, Rutan was dismissive.

"There is nothing wrong with doing things for fun, Rutan said: "We don't know what going to space is good for, and we don't give a damn."

As someone who spent 7 years of his life sanding fiberglass resin, styofoam and glass microballoons into a workable Rutan aircraft design, I can tell you for a fact that he means it exactly the way it sounds. Once upon a time in the late 1980s Burt gave a speech to folks at an airshow that "Someday we will have homebuilt spacecraft going into space".

After he said it only the people who were flying traditional metal aircraft were laughing. Those of us who fly Rutan Canards knew he wasnt kidding and just shook our heads silently in agreement. We knew that Burt didnt kid about things like that. It was just that most peoples imaginations simply handt caught up with his yet. Those who had been bitten in the past by saying "Burt cant do that" knew better than to put limits on the man.

Oh by the way, my sources at Mojave tell me that the Scaled Composites White Knight has recently been seen toting the NASA X-37 around in taxi tests. Of course the silly bastard couldnt be bothered to take pictures for me to post!

So heres the link to great white knight/x-37 stuff from Mojave Books.

Posted @ June 01, 2005 10:19 AM | Current Affairs