Driven by the recent success of SpaceShipOne, Burt Rutan seeks to show the world his dream of a space tourism industry—and make it come true.

Looking to the prize In 1995, Peter Diamandis, a communications and aerospace entrepreneur and chairman, president, and founder of the X PRIZE Foundation, proposed the idea that a prize be offered to the first private team to develop a ship that will "jump start the space tourism industry." In May 1996, the X PRIZE was announced: $10 million to the first team able to privately finance and build a ship capable of flying three people to 100 km altitude, twice within a two-week period, and returning safely to earth. Currently, 26 teams from seven nations are competing. In his testimony to the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics (July 15, 2003) Diamandis attributed the success of the X Prize to three key components: the rules, which were well thought through and clearly presented; the “romance and excitement involved with the prize topic;" and the existence of a business or market to support the teams after the prize was won. Although SpaceShipOne’s flight on June 21st did not qualify as an ANSARI X PRIZE flight since it only carried one pilot, it was needed preparation for the competition flight attempts Scaled Composites plans to make this September and October.

Burt Rutan knows what he wants and he doesn’t aim low. “I would like to achieve a goal that NASA has neglected: to make flight outside the atmosphere accessible to common man by making sub-orbital flights available to ‘space tourists,’ " he says. Rutan is not alone in this dream. According to a study by the Bethesda, Md.-consulting firm Futron Corp., a forecast for suborbital space travel predicts that by 2021, more than 15,000 passengers could be flying annually, generating revenues in excess of $700 million.

It is Rutan’s contributions to this goal along with his countless innovative aerospace designs that have earned him R&D Magazine’s 2004 Innovator of the Year award. He joins the ranks of previous winners Larry Page, Google; Ian Foster, Argonne (Globus ToolKit); and Stuart Parkin, IBM (Spintronics).

Pushing the envelope
As president/CEO of Scaled Composites, Mojave, Calif. (see sidebar), Burt Rutan credits his mentor Wernher von Braun the first director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center with teaching him that people can set their sights extremely high and then go for them.

The company behind the man Scaled Composites is an aerospace and specialty composites development company located in Mojave, Calif. Founded in April 1982 by Burt Rutan, Scaled has a broad experience in air vehicle design, tooling and manufacturing, specialty composite structure design, analysis and fabrication, and developmental flight testing. In June 1985, Scaled was sold to Beech Aircraft Corp., acquired by Wyman-Gordon Co., North Grafton, Mass., in January 1989, and then sold to 11 private investors (including Rutan) in September 2000. Rutan has been president/CEO since its formation in 1982. The company is headquartered in three flight line buildings located on the Mojave Airport and employs 130 people. Since most of the projects done by Scaled are proprietary to the customer, the facility is closed to the public.

In the early 1970s, as director of the Bede Test Center, Bede Aircraft, Newton, Kan., Rutan was responsible for the design and development of the BD-5J jet, the world’s smallest private jet aircraft.

After founding Scaled Composites in 1982, Rutan embarked on his most expensive project, the Beech Starship. It turned out to be just one in a series of his trademark experimental and unique aircraft designs. The most notable was Beech’s Model 2000 Starship, an all-composite craft that used rudders on upturned “winglets” at the end of each wing (instead of a conventional tail), in addition to a variable-sweep canard. The result was a high-performance, stall-free aircraft that accommodated two pilots and eight passengers and could keep up with small business jets.

When asked of his most pivotal project that changed the way people regard aircraft design, Rutan feels it is certainly the Voyager aircraft, which made history in 1986 with its around the world, non-refueled flight doubling an existing range record. However, when speaking of his single largest success, Rutan knows it happened on June 21, 2004.

Burt Rutan Current position: Founder and president/CEO of Scaled Composites, Mojave, Calif. (privately-owned) Education: B.S. Aeronautical Engineering, California Polytechnic Univ., third in graduating class; Space Technology Institute, California Institute of Technology; Academic portion of Aerospace Research Pilots School, Edwards Air Force Base. Member: Experimental Aircraft Association; Society of Experimental Test Pilots; American Inst. of Aeronautics & Astronautics; Society of Flight Test Engineers; Academy of Model Aeronautics; International Order of Characters; Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association; National Academy of Engineering. Awards: “Business Leader in Aerospace” presented by Scientific American, November 10, 2003; The Reed Aeronautics Award presented by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, May 9, 2001; Presidential Citizen’s Medal presented by Ronald Reagan, December 29, 1986, for the design/development of the Voyager “around-the-world aircraft.” Projects: White Knight (an airborne launch aircraft) and SpaceShipOne (a three-person, high-altitude research rocket); Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer (aiming to set a world record for the first solo, non-stop, non-refueled circumnavigation of the world); Proteus (high altitude long endurance aircraft) for different scientific missions; Voyager aircraft (designed by Rutan Aircraft Factory Inc., Mojave, Calif.). Patents held: Grizzly wide-chord flap suspension system, U.S. Patent Number 4,614,320; Variable geometry high lift system incorporated in the Beech Starship, U.S. Patent Number 4,641,800 (foreign patents also held); Rutan Model 115 Starship configuration, U.S. Patent Number Des. 292,393 (foreign patents also held)

On that day, SpaceShipOne hitched a ride beneath the White Knight, a matching jet-powered aircraft, which carried the rocket to an altitude of about 15 km before being released. Climbing to an altitude of 100 km, SpaceShipOne took only 25 mins to make its way into history as the first non-government supported manned flight to exit Earth’s atmosphere. Credited as the most fun, yet most difficult project that he has ever worked on, Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites plan to enter this innovative aircraft (entirely funded by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft) into the ANSARI X PRIZE contest (see sidebar).

“I think that the SpaceShipOne flight is by far much more significant than the around the world Voyager flight,” he says. “The main reason is that while the Voyager flight was a significant aerospace milestone, it didn’t lead to anything. I think this is going to lead to a new space race, or a new space age and one that people can enjoy, instead of just the government and astronauts.”
“The U.S. has an enormous capability because it sends engineers out to be entrepreneurs, and that’s why we’ve excelled at things like software and computers,” he adds. “I believe that same talent, applied to space travel, is going to be the next really big thing, whereas computers have been the ‘big thing’ over the last 20 years. I expect to see the U.S. as the leader in providing affordable space access in the future.”

The first but not the last
More recently, Rutan, working with Richard Branson and Virgin Atlantic Airways, has designed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. Built by Scaled Composites, the new GlobalFlyer is a turbofan aircraft fitted for a single pilot and engine. The ultra-light plane is made entirely from composite materials and can carry more than four times its own weight in fuel. Debuted in January, it had a successful test run in March, and hopes to set the world record for the first solo, non-stop, non-refuelled circumnavigation of the world later this year.

Rutan is understandably hush-hush on any future projects, but feels that his company will take a similar approach to those as they did with his latest project, SpaceShipOne, which was unveiled after being in design for eight years and under development for two years.

Burt, we can’t wait.

--Lorraine Joyce
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ANSARI X PRIZE, www.xprize.com
Futron Corp., 301-913-9372, www.scaled.com
Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com