Burt Rutan's Race to Space: The Magician of Mojave and His Flying Innovations - Hardcover

“When it comes to the sky, Burt knows no boundaries. He is always reaching beyond normal expectations. This book will help you understand what makes Burt tick. It answers the ‘why and how’ behind many of his designs and innovations.”

—Tom Poberezny, Chairman of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and EAA AirVenture (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) “If you long to someday visit space yourself, this is a must-read. It very accurately captures the early evolution of space travel that will someday be as commonplace as airline travel is today.” —Dan Kreigh, Senior Structural Engineer, SpaceShipOne Years ago, Burt Rutan told a reporter for Popular Mechanics, “If we make a courageous decision like the goal and program we kicked off for Apollo in 1961, we will see our children or grandchildren in outposts on other planets.” Legendary science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clark would later recall Rutan’s quote in a piece he wrote about SpaceShipOne and comment, “Fortunately, we need not rely solely on governments for expanding humanity’s presence beyond the Earth.” Burt Rutan’s Race to Space chronicles Rutan’s herculean efforts to do just that. Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum displays his breathtaking innovations: SpaceShipOne (winner of the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight), the Voyager, Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, and the VeriEze. His aerospace innovations preceding SpaceShipOne chronicle a progressive, step-by-step attempt to break barriers with engineering know-how and a wondrous imagination, all the while remaining on the forefront of the burgeoning private spaceflight industry. Rutan’s X Prize triumph and subsequent spacecraft designs are not a beginning, nor an end, but are steps in Burt Rutan’s continuing adventure to expand humanity’s presence beyond the Earth and into space.

 

“Burt Rutan’s Race to Space gives a wonderfully revealing glimpse into the mind of an aerospace genius. I got to know Burt well as he and his team competed for and ultimately won the $10 million Ansari X Prize with SpaceShipOne. Burt’s innovative spirit and out-of-the-box thinking helped open the door to space travel for not just him but for all of us.”—Peter Diamandis,Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation,Cofounder of Space Adventures, Ltd. We now stand on the brink of private space travel, thanks to the efforts of a maverick genius. Burt Rutan’s Race to Space chronicles this amazing story, offering the most complete visual record of his most significant designs, world records, and elite honors. Included are dozens of pioneering air- and spacecraft that have successfully flown with the help of Burt’s innovative fellow designers and courageous test pilots. This heavily illustrated history traces Rutan’s evolution toward becoming one of the great aerospace designers of all time. It starts with Rutan’s early career when he developed aircraft for the Rutan Aircraft Factory, a period marked by some of his greatest leaps in aerospace design; his founding of Scaled Composites, where many of his design breakthroughs are still kept under intense proprietary secrecy; his elegant SpaceShipOne design, a true engineering marvel; and SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle that would in many ways be the culmination of Rutan’s childhood dream and life’s work (to quote poet and aviator John Magee), to slip “the surly bonds of earth” and “trod the high, untrespassed sanctity of space.”