4/11/2013 Written by News-Gazette Champaign, Illinois
Written by Written by News-Gazette Champaign, Illinois
Burt Rutan balks when asked how soon routine commercial spaceflight will be a reality.
“It is in development,” the developer of SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded craft to reach space, said at the University of Illinois Sunday. “I can't give you a schedule.”
But Rutan, at the UI to receive an honorary degree, later said it will happen in more like ´several years´ than decades: expensive flights at first, but becoming more common, and cheaper, as the years pass.
Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne made headlines in 2004, is developing a SpaceShipTwo, for Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Virgin Airlines, which has announced that it will begin space tourism flights in the next two years.
SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which was designed to spur commercial spaceflight.
The famed aircraft designer also is known for Voyager, which made a record-breaking nine-day flight around the world in 1986 without stopping or refueling, and GlobalFlyer, a jet adventurer Steve Fossett used last year in the first nonrefueled solo flight around the world, a trip that took three days.
A big issue in commercial spaceflight will be developing aircraft and systems safe enough for public use, Rutan said after a brunch put on by the UI Department of Aerospace Engineering, which submitted his name for an honorary degree. It was his first trip to Champaign-Urbana.
“You have to demonstrate that you have a robust system when you fly the public,” he said, “several hundred times as safe as all of government spaceflight.”
He noted the 4 percent death rate in manned spaceflight to date save for SpaceShipOne all backed by governments and bristled at the notion that the number seems small considering.
“You can't have a business and kill 4 percent of your customers, Rutan said. “That's horrible.”
Early commercial spacecraft will have to be at least as safe as early airliners in the 1920s and '30s, he said. The first airlines suffered a death for every 6,000 passengers and quickly improved to one every 35,000.
Rutan was incredulous at a question about why anyone would want to travel to space, a destination not exactly well-appointed with five-star hotels and restaurants.
All you need to do is listen to people who've been there, he said, who generally talk about the life-changing nature of the experience.
He wants to go himself.
While SpaceShipOne, Voyager and GlobalFlyer taught us things about aerodynamics, aircraft materials and the like, Rutan said he derives his greatest pleasure from creating concepts and designs for aircraft.
Voyager essentially resulted because it was a challenge. The world was just large enough and conventional planes just limited enough to raise some doubt about whether it was possible to design a craft to fly around the equator without stopping or refueling, he said.
“I get a feeling of satisfaction when I come up with something (new that) probably wouldn't have been thought of,” Rutan said.
He wouldn't pick a favorite project, answering the question with a question. “Do you have any kids, which one's your favorite?”
“Any time I'm asked that, I usually say the next one,” he said.