Posted on 05/04/2006 6:13:14 PM PDT by anymouse
LOS ANGELES - Maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan on Thursday criticized NASA's decision to use an Apollo-style capsule to return to the moon, saying it "doesn't make any sense" to build a new generation of space vehicles using old technology.
The designer of SpaceShipOne said NASA's proposed crew exploration vehicle to replace the aging space shuttle fleet doesn't push the technical envelope needed to accomplish more complex future missions that might include manned flights to other planets and moons.
"I don't know what they're doing," said Rutan, referring to NASA. "It doesn't make any sense."
Rutan said there needs to be a technological breakthrough in spacecraft design that would make it affordable and safe to send humans anywhere in the solar system. But he said he doesn't know what that breakthrough will be.
"Usually the wacky people have the breakthrough. The smart people don't," Rutan told an audience at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles.
NASA is planning to return astronauts to the moon by 2018 and eventually send them to Mars. Unlike previous lunar missions, the space agency is studying possible areas where it can set up a human outpost.
Two competing contractors, Lockheed Martin and a team of Northrop Grumman and Boeing, each have contracts to develop conceptual designs of the crew exploration vehicle. The vehicle, which will be shaped like an Apollo-era capsule, will launched atop a rocket and return to Earth by parachutes.
NASA is expected to name a winner to build the vehicle by August.
NASA spokesman Dean Acosta said the crew exploration vehicle is a "fiscally responsible" project that achieves the space agency's goal of returning to the moon within its budget constraint.
"If you want sexy, it will cost a lot more money," Acosta said.
Rutan is currently building a commercial version of SpaceShipOne, which made history in 2004 when it became the first privately financed manned rocket to reach space.
Virgin Galactic, a British space tourism company, plans to take tourists on suborbital spaceflights using Rutan-designed rocketplanes launched from a proposed spaceport in New Mexico.
Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn said Thursday the company is looking at possible future spaceports in the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Scotland or Sweden.
Virgin Galactic representatives recently visited Kiruna in northern Sweden to explore the possibility of launching suborbital flights that will allow passengers to see the Northern Lights, Whitehorn said.
Last summer, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and Rutan, president of Mojave-based Scaled Composites LLC, agreed to form The Spaceship Company to build and market spaceships and launcher planes, licensing technology from a company owned by billionaire Paul G. Allen, who financed SpaceShipOne.
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On the Net:
Virgin Galactic: http://www.virgingalactic.com/en/
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/spacecraft/index.html
Scaled Composites: http:/http://www.scaled.com
So?
Rutan has accomplished some significant firsts in aeronautics and space. I think he's highly qualified to criticize NASA.
Indeed, he has made some very significant firsts that are on a far lesser level then that NASA did with Apollo.
They are doing what the politicians, in particular the top Republican, are telling them to do. Of course it doesn't make any sense. Duh.
I disagree totally with that. Rutan did not have a NASA-like budget. Nor a NASA-like staff. He didn't have Navy aircraft carriers and helicopters at his disposal. My guess is that he did it on less than the X-15 budget (equalized dollars) and maybe even with fewer staff. His re-entry method alone was very novel!
Very few of the public understand, even though Kennedy's "I believe this nation should commit itself.." ;) speech was in 1963, as much as a couple years later, engineers and scientists were still arguing over the rough design and method of actually getting to the moon, there were no spacecraft _actually built_, just tinker-toy models! Contractors must have been pulling their hair out.
Primitive, yes; but I'm certain not anywhere near on the cheap as SpaceShip One.
And relying on slide rules for much of their work.
Burt, we're talking about a government agency that launched a generation old idea called the space bus in the 1980s. They wouldn't know a good idea if it bit them. They're existing off government money
NASA wasting taxpayer dollars since 1958
SpaceShipOne was cheap because it was built using existing technology and composites.
It's called "Design By Congressional Committee", and it RARELY works out well...
Innovation wins every time, but it's better done by folks with drive and profit motive, than by pandering to pols wanting pork.......
The Beech Starship was an interesting design.
Why did Beech buy them all back? Didn't they destroy them all? They were certainly very advanced for thier day.
The Starship was a hell of an Aircraft, but Raytheon actually bought them back and DESTROYED THEM, rather than have the liability of having the product out long-term, and competeing with it's newer models....
Trail Lawyers have KILLEd innovation in America.....
Aw jwwz, not this s*** again!
Look I think NASA did great. Now it has lost it focus.
You think if they could put a man on the moon.....they could put a man on the moon!
The Starship was a great, advanced design but it was too expensive and a commercial flop.
"Commercially the aeroplane was a failure, with little demand. Only 53 Starships were ever built, and of those only a handful were sold. Many of the remainder were eventually leased."
"Reasons for the lack of demand probably included price, performance, and economic conditions. The list price in 1989 was $3.9 million, similar to the Cessna Citation V and Lear 31 jets, which were 89 and 124 knots faster than the Starship at maximum cruise, respectively. The Piper Cheyenne turboprop was faster and sold for $1 million less. (Aviation Week, Oct. 2, 1989)."
Worth repeating... red tape is one thing, but a potential massive jury award adds 100% cost overhead to any potential technological breakthrough..... hence, a risky investment becomes to risky. Off-shoring does not always occur to take advantage of cheap labor.
My understanding is that the ISS is supposed to be some sort of research platform. Moreover, it was purported to be some sort of nexus for launching to the Moon, which was supposed to be the intent since 1969 as being the springboard to Mars.
Never happen; we'll never get to Mars (ever). With the way the energy crises is unfolding, and the way the world's econcomy is decaying: there's not enough money in the world (in real terms) to get to Mars. And if the bird flu strikes, or China invades Taiwan simultaneously while N. Korea invades the South: FORGET IT we're not going to Mars.
Not that we need to go to Mars either, unless there are commercially viable and exploitable reasons to do so (autobots can do whatever research is necessary).
It's plausible that we may go to the asteroids for mining operations (for raw materials to build stuff in orbit so as to eliminate the energy budget of launching finished materials into orbit). Or we may go to Saturn ostensibly to nudge large chuncks of ice into Earth orbit for use as fuel.
However, I'm extremely pessimistic that will happen in our, our grand-children's (or even their grand-children's lives).
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