Burt Rutan Takes Us to the Stars

摘要

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).