Burt Rutan says that NASA will be eating his dust.

"Thirty years ago, if you had asked NASA -- and people did in those days -- 'How long would it be before I could buy tickets to space?' the answer was, 'About 30 years,' " Rutan told reporters in June.

"If you ask today, you'll get about the same answer, '30 years.' I think that's unfortunate. There's been no progress at all made toward affordable space travel."

I think Rutan may fall into the category of people who motivate themselves by letting their mouths write checks their ass on only just barely hope to cash. Or maybe he's just dreaming :-)

"He was among the first to make use of lightweight composite materials -- rather than heavy metals -- in aircraft designs."

How accurate is this statement? I thought that composites were introduced with the F-111 and F-14. They've been around a long time, but the real issue is how much to use them.

That's actually an often-useful way to motivate yourself -- my Mom came home from the hospital with me (kid #5) and a case of pneumonia. My dad informed her that he'd quit his job with Lawrence Berkeley Labs and was starting a business. Ended up working out alright, and not least because he was scared silly of the risk he was taking.

I sense some danger. Bad mouthing NASA in public isn't likely to be helpful. NASA has considerable political, financial and personnel resources. They can very probably squash him flat.

He should be talking *up* NASA, whilst creating conditions where he can make money.

"I sense some danger. Bad mouthing NASA in public isn't likely to be helpful. NASA has considerable political, financial and personnel resources. They can very probably squash him flat."

Doubtful. And these comments are not that severe. But it is still not very smart. DARPA has explored the possibility of using SS1 for experimental work. NASA is a potential customer as well for payloads that they might normally put on a sounding rocket. So they are a potential customer and he should not alienate them.

If Rutan's comments get NASA to do useful cheap orbital and suborbital, I would say that would be a success in Burt's eyes.

"If Rutan's comments get NASA to do useful cheap orbital and suborbital"

Yeah, but it wouldn't. They'd just launch another X-33 style program or something to squash Rutan flat. The NASA program would probably fail, but in the meantime there'd be all these nay-sayers asking what makes them think that they can do better than the much better financed NASA program; or some trivial variation on this theme.

If Rutan started saying nice things about NASA, I'd look for the guy standing behind him with a gun . . .

They'd just launch another X-33 style program or something to squash Rutan flat.

And get the funding where?

One of the consequences I'd hope to expect from a successful X-prize attempt, would be that the political field would tilt as purse-string holders realize that maybe taxpayers don't need to be soaked quite so intensively for the same amount of "bang."