Burt Rutan
From The Space Library
Burt Rutan
Burt Rutan is an aircraft designer known for designing light, strong, energy-efficient aircraft. He is famous for his design of Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and for recent projects: White Knight and suborbital rocket plane SpaceShipOne. In 1965 Rutan graduated from California Polytechnic University with an aeronautical engineering degree, went to work for the U.S. Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base as a flight test project engineer on such projects as fighter spin tests and the XC-142 VSTOL transport, and later became director of the Bede Test Center in Kansas. In 1974 he founded the Rutan Aircraft Factory in Mojave California to develop light homebuilt aircraft and in 1982 founded Scaled Composites Inc. to develop research aircraft. Scaled has become the world's most productive aerospace prototype development company. Burt wants to be able to travel to the Moon in his lifetime.
