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Burt Rutan On Future Of SpaceShipOne (and Two)
Neil Halelamien writes "In a recent interview with the Desert Sun, Burt Rutan talks about the future of SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo. The bad news is that SpaceShipOne will be retired straight to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, despite getting five different requests to fly suborbital payloads. The good news is that efforts are being focused on SpaceShipTwo, which will carry nine people, and fly higher and further downrange than SpaceShipOne. Virgin Galactic will purchase a fleet of five of these vehicles, which will start test flights in 2007. Virgin Galactic may end up competing with Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, which is rumored to be developing a VTOL suborbital vehicle. Also interesting to watch will be Rutan's involvement with t/Space, one of the companies contracted by NASA to conduct concept studies for the Vision for Space Exploration."
Burt launched with 40mph winds on takeoff. Any reasonable person would have postponed the launch. Rutan didn't. Wind shear is not a "fact of life". NASA is intelligent enough to abort when there's wind shear even a fraction of this strength, because it's a good way to get people killed. Yes, the test pilot survived. Good for him, he was lucky. He may well not have had time to regain control.
We're all familiar with the tragedy of being you.