Tweeted yesterday by Hyperbola, below is the full text of Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan's response to Associated Press science writer Alicia Chang:
That is not a "NASA plan"; it is the proposed budget from the White House. It will likely be revised by the Congress. I am for NASA doing either true Research, or doing forefront Exploration, with taxpayer $.
Ares/Orion is more of a Development program than a Research program, so I am not depressed to see it disappear. I am concerned to see NASA manned spaceflight disappear, since they provided world leadership in the 60s and part of the 70s. The result was America's universities being the leader in Science/Engineering PhDs.
Many American kids will be depressed by the thought that our accomplishments will not be continued and thus America will fall deeper away from our previous leadership in Engineering/Science/Math. I believe our future success depends on our ability to motivate our youth.
I would support a restructuring of goals and funding so NASA can be allowed to perform like the 60s on space Research and on Exploration. There is not a shred of evidence that the President sees any value in those goals.
Alicia, my thoughts have also been distributed to other Media.
on February 5, 2010 5:26 PM | Reply
Hopefully the commercial industry and the people of America /Canada together are motivated enough to make exploration a reality. The right engineering team and a few hundred dollars from each of our pockets would be a good start. Dreams can become reality if we pull together.
Brad
on February 7, 2010 10:46 PM | Reply
Would expect the final budget for a purely science based NASA with no ambitious program to be in the $6 billion range. That's what other space science groups like NOAA get.
on February 9, 2010 4:36 AM | Reply
I am a bit pessimistic, and have my doubts that private industry will come through and produce the next generation manned spacecraft. I've seen a lot of these companies start up with big plans and quickly discover that their ideas of how to do things cheaply make for a lot of failures. Then they learn that it's not that cheap to be able to make a rocket that will actually work under the harsh conditions that they have to go through. They learn you just can't throw things together and they will work. There is a reason space is so expensive.
The main thing that private companies need to do is to build a manned spacecraft that can actually get to orbit and back. That's an order of magnitude more difficult than the SS1 craft, that Rutan built, which only goes to 62 miles (100KM) and back without ever getting even close to orbital velocity. I like him and am rooting for him to make it a go, but I'll have to see an orbiter design before I consider private companies have the wherewithal to build a space program for a whole lot less than NASA spends.
on February 9, 2010 5:24 PM | Reply
Burt would have no problem developing an orbitor using already proven technologies. The knowledge to do so is already carved in stone (look at Elon). What Burt is interested in is break throughs, taking the next step and doing it better/safer/reliable (research). That is where the difficulty is. SS2 takes the next step with a carefree sub-orbital re-entry. No one has done this yet except him. His program is more difficult than one would think, the degree of difficulty is not all based on the velocity of the spacecraft, but rather the safety,reliability,durability, and a quick turn around time for next use, not to mention the excellent ergonomics and viewing capability that he is building into his craft.
Brad