Burt Rutan: What the hell have we been doing?

Burt Rutan, speaking at the National Space Society’s 2005 conference, takes NASA to task for decades without meaningful progress in manned spaceflight. Powerful words from the man who designed, built, and successfully launched his own spacecraft on more flights that year than all other space programs combined.

Duration 0:52:40

[The SR-71 and Concorde] went all the way through their life cycle until they got too rusty to maintain, and got shut down and we retreated back to the same performance, military and commercial, that we had in 1960. Guys, that was 45 years ago. Now go back from 1960, 45 years earlier when airplanes were biplanes with fabric wings and wooden propellers. What the hell have we been doing? –B. Rutan

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You’re currently reading “Burt Rutan: What the hell have we been doing?,” an entry on Citizen Reports

Published:: October 18, 2006 / 6:15 pm

Category:: science, space, transportation, video

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Cars 10.19.06 / 7am

No doubt Burt Rutan has done great job but it doesn’t mean that NASA and other sources didn’t do well. NASA’s performance through decades are marvelous.

bjornlee 10.19.06 / 11am

say what you want, but the government has done its part, now’s time for it to step aside and let the private sector take the lead in innovation. Make space flights as ubiquitous as airplane flights!

Alfredo Louro 10.19.06 / 2pm

Rutan should take a look at some images by Cassini. There is a lot more to space exploration than taking money from millionaires for the privilege of throwing up in near weightlessness.

Joe 10.19.06 / 6pm

True, NASA is very good at deep-space exploration. They just suck at manned flight.

Burt Rutan calls it as he sees it « Tai-Chi Policy 10.19.06 / 6pm

[...] With an excellent speech brought to you via Citizen Reports. NASA has sat on it’s butt since Apollo, and he calls them on it. [...]

LiftPort Staff Blog » Blog Archive » What the hell have we been doing? 10.20.06 / 3am

[...] Burt Rutan, speaking at the National Space Society’s 2005 conference. Once commercial guys do this and they it for profit and once it is successful and profitable the whole picture changes. I’m convinced that investment will no longer be a problem if we do our job right. And that is to go out and do the right things to solve the safety problems and start flying a lot of people. [...]

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Magnetoplasma 10.14.08 / 3pm

Nasa is getting a bit rusty. Manned Exploration of space is the private sectors job now. Nasa has done great with deep space exploration and the moon landings, but it just isn’t paying it forward anymore.

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Burt Rutan: What the hell have we been doing?

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