Thursday, October 19, 2006

What the hell have we been doing?

The contents of Mr. Rutan's speech may not accurately reflect the views of Liftport or the people who work there. On the other hand, it may.

A blog is never intended to be a place for position statements or to lay out policy, except where specifically noted. The flip-side of that is that our blog is a reflection of what Liftport is and stands for as a company, and who and what it's employes are and stand for.

....

Burt Rutan may be considered in some quarters to be wrong in the details of his speech - his achievements with SpaceShipOne merely duplicating what has already been done. Yet he's an American and entitled - expected - to speak his mind. When a guy who is that smart and has - really - done so many things in aerospace stands his ground and speaks his mind, what he says deserves more than a passing and dismisive glance.

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.
and
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?

What do you think?



Respectfully Submitted,
Brian Dunbar
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