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
Burt Rutan quotes about
Within 25 years, virtual reality meetings will be essentially transparent to being there in person. Once we can do this, the idea of climbing into an aircraft, and burning up huge quantities of fossil fuels to propel our bodies and briefcases full of papers, will seem absolutely backward.
I like to call the difference between research and development. Some people use that interchangeably. They'll say R&D. They're two totally different things.
Confidence in nonsense is required.
Science is not about consensus, and consensus is not science.
Airplanes were invented by natural selection. Now you can say that intelligent design designs our airplanes of today, but there was no intelligent design really designing those early airplanes. There were probably at least 30,000 different things tried, and when they crash and kill the pilot, don't try that again.
The criticism is, once I get something flying, I lose interest in it.
Everything looks nonsensical before it works.
Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year. Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It's absurd.
We need affordable space travel to inspire our youth, to let them know that they can experience their dreams, can set significant goals and be in a position to lead all of us to future progress in exploration, discovery and fun. Thanks to the X Prize for the inspiration.
We'll go back to the moon by not learning anything new.
America was good enough to make a small compact lighter weight nuclear weapon. The Russians still had these big clunky heavy ones, so they had to build the big boosters in the arm's war, so now all of the sudden Russia could take off the shelf and put into orbit much heavier things than we could, so that's why they had the original leadership.
My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different perspective in which I am an expert … For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion - 'if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who's merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying'. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.
Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding
In 12 or 15 years, there will be routine, affordable space tourism not just in the U.S. but in a lot of countries