Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Credit: Scaled Composites

As part of Aviation Week & Space Technology’s special centennial issue, aerospace imagineer, Burt Rutan, founder of Scaled Composites, has shared his thoughts on the next 100 years of aerospace, and the ingredients required for technological breakthroughs.

Rutan led the team who created the first privately built spacecraft to send humans into space – SpaceShipOne — that then repeated the achievement within five days. Accomplishing the feat, the team captured the Ansari X Prize in 2004.

Engineering challenge

“We should aggressively work to discover if we are the only intelligent species in the universe,” Rutan explains. Furthermore, he notes that “any important breakthrough, before it happens, is often dismissed as nonsense.”

“I agree with my friend Elon Musk that locating our species on more than just Earth may be our most important engineering challenge,” Rutan writes. “Also, protecting our planet and our species from history’s only real significant threat (asteroid/comet impact) should not be overlooked. Aerospace researchers should have a critical role in developing technologies needed to achieve both those goals.”

For full access to Rutan’s look into the past and future, go to:

http://aviationweek.com/space/next-100-years-burt-rutan

Special thanks to Frank Morring of Aviation Week & Space Technology for assisting in this posting.

SpaceShipOne returns to the runway.
Courtesy of Scaled Composites, LLC

The sweep of aerospace progress is celebrated in Aviation Week & Space Technology’s special centennial issue.
Credit: Ted Williams/Aviation Week & Space Technology