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11.8.06

TECH - Space Ship Builder Guru Burt Rutan talks about His Plans for Space Tourism


At ScaledComposites—home of the privately financed and built SpaceShipOne that made atrio of piloted suborbital flights in 2004 under the rubric of Tier 1—thefabrication of a fleet of passenger-carrying space planes and huge carrierlaunch planes is underway. This activity is labeled Tier 1b.

Burt Rutan,head of the firm, is chief design maestro leading a spaceliner workforce. Whilehe’s not about to roll out blueprints or show you factory floor hardware, hegave this reporter a squat down, legs folded, but relaxing beanbag chairinterview in his office to discuss the business of public space travel.

What does visionary space frontiersman say about his planned fleet of space tourism crafts?

“I’d loveto be working on going to the Moon. I’m doing this really because I don’t thinkI can convince a funder to go out and invest in an orbital system that we’renot sure would work.”...

...Along withlots of windows, a close second on the “must have” checklist is for customersto experience weightlessness. A person in SpaceShipTwo will feel just fourminutes of freefall, so having a great big cabin is extremely important, Rutanpointed out, “to be able to stretch out your arms and legs and float around.”

“Theimpression you get is that it’s important to know why you’re floating, so youneed windows. You want to fly…you don’t want to be strapped in. And toexperience weightlessness in shirtsleeve is important, not being bothered witha pressure suit or tied down to a cable or having a helmet on,” he said.


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