Dale wants me to comment on yesterday's entertaining but unconstructive rant from the sage of Mojave. I know it will sound like heresy to some, but the post title is all I have to say at this time, for those commenters at his post who seem to think the opposite. He won the X-Prize because he got funded, not because he's the only person who could do it, or even had the best way to do it. The fact that he doesn't know how to get to orbit means nothing, except that he doesn't know how to get to orbit. There are smart people who do, given sufficient funds, and there is more than one way to do it.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I just noticed that Sam had some other thoughts on one of Burt's other unuseful and illogical comments.

Finally.

Indeed he is not. I've never seen God before, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have 70's era engineer mutton-chops. And I kinda hope he doesn't...

"Finally"?

Were you previously under the misapprehension that I ever deified Burt?

Nah, not you, just that he has generally always been mentioned when there has been talk about "Having a news crew on the moon to greet the Apollo 2.0 landings" or some other dreaming.

I agree with you on many things, like that rocket racing could improve aspects of engines that would eventually be useful for Earth to orbit flight. (Not that it is useful per se.) Also multi-faceted development by multiple companies doing hardware to test their approach to cheap spaceflight could yield good results at this point of technological development, compared to "one committee designing an optimal rocket".
(Well, constellation isn't supposed to be cheap or dependable, just the cheapest, quickest and safest possible in that constrained timeframe it's got.)

I for one am glad that Constellation is a modernized Apollo - a ship that has plenty of newer but still off-the-shelf technology.

The Shuttle was as much an X-vehicle as Venturestar, full of hopes that the unproven technologies would not only work, but work well.

Keep developing X-vehicles, but Constellation should NOT be an X-vehicle.

I'm fascinated to see that Burt Rutan is the second successfull space entrepeneur to be slammed here. And simply for saying some of the same things that others have said about the CEV. Mind, I disagree with the premise that it's NASA's job to build the hardware that opens up the space frontier. I think it's the job of people like Rutan.

I'm fascinated to see that Burt Rutan is the second successfull space entrepeneur to be slammed here.

Just out of curiousity, Mark (and not that I've "slammed" any space entrepreneurs, except in your mind), are space entrepreneurs, successful or otherwise, supposed to be beyond criticism? I knew that was your position with NASA, but I didn't realize that all were infallible gods to you.

And Rand accuses me of using strawmen? Amazing that in a post in which I respectfully disagree with Rutan, Rand Simberg accuses me of regarding him as a god. The mind boggles.

I've, of course, never suggested that anyone is beyond criticism. I think I've been a more effective critic of NASA because I've actually steered within objective reality, not gone off into the sort of idealogical tomfoolery exhibited by the Internet Rocketeer Club.

I came here hoping to read a synopsis of what you guys thought was the "right way" to do orbital spaceflight. Instead it is more of the same quibbling and squabling with no insight or vision.

Not only isn’t Rutan a god he’s annoying and perhaps the most conceded person on earth. He won’t even acknowledge that the all he has done is repeat a 50 year old stunt using more modern technology. It’d be like me flying across the Atlantic then pretending that what I did was equal to what Limburg did.

I also noticed in the transcript of his talk he’s already preparing to blame his impending failure to achieve commercially viable space flight on government.

“There remain several sticky, red tape rules that may well cripple experimental research and development of passenger-carrying space planes.”

No Burt it won’t be governments fault, it’ll be because it’s too expensive and too dangerous.

Oh, yippee, Mark and Rand are bickering again!

Bill, I prefer to think of it as a frank exchange of views (g). While Rutan is certainly not God (and I wonder whoever claimed him to be one), he has done something that no private person before or since has done. Flown people into space. I think that buys a little understanding of certain eccentricies.

I notice that no one seems interested in debating the original point Rutan makes, attacking the man instead. Which is likely a good idea since Rutan has a damn good point. The space tourism "business" will be history right after the first ship goes "pop!". Even if it's some idiot who blows himself up, the rest will go down right behind him. We aren't living in the days of the barnstormers anymore. The media will eat the industry alive.

The space tourism "business" will be history right after the first ship goes "pop!".

Nonsense. There is zero basis, or history, to justify this strange belief.

I notice that no one seems interested in debating the original point Rutan makes, attacking the man instead. Which is likely a good idea since Rutan has a damn good point. The space tourism "business" will be history right after the first ship goes "pop!". Even if it's some idiot who blows himself up, the rest will go down right behind him. We aren't living in the days of the barnstormers anymore. The media will eat the industry alive.

It seems to me that if one really believed that, then if one were building a suborbital vehicle one would be careful to design it so that it had multiple uses besides tourism, and could handle multiple types of payloads.

Unless you define the main part of the vehicle as the carrier aircraft, the SS1 design doesn't do this, and the SS2 design probably won't.

I'm not involved in any "alt.space" company, but this seems to be a problem with a lot of the proposed or under-construction vehicles. The only way I can see it as not being a problem for SS2 is if one thinks of the carrier aircraft as being most of the "system," _but_, even if the rocket stage is relatively cheap, it's the major element that needs to be proven.

There is zero basis, or history, to justify this strange belief.

Ah, the world famous Simbergian logical retort!

Rand, there's lots and lots of basis for this belief, that you don't accept the arguments is utterly irrelvent. As is, frankly, much of your output these days.

At the very worst, a crash and fatalities would mean a move offshore. It would be a loss to the country but the industry would handily survive.

Burt Rutan might not be God but he's certainly done things no other company has ever accomplished. The level of ingenuity that he and his crew have soon is extrodinary. Some may not like him for whatever reason but Scaled Composites' creativity and revolutionary thinking, as opposed to most companies evolutionary thinking, is extremely refreshing and extrodinary. And if you think his comment about government red-tape is an excuse for future failure, then you've never dealt much with the government and you might as well join Brian Sibrel in telling Buzz Aldrin he never made it to the Moon.

...there's lots and lots of basis for this belief...

Then surely you'll be providing it, if you want the rest of us to accept this. So far, you've given us zip.

And if you think his comment about government red-tape is an excuse for future failure, then you've never dealt much with the government

Burt is demanding more, not less government red tape.

The space tourism "business" will be history right after the first ship goes "pop!".

I dont know if you have been paying attention, but a few contestants ships already went "pop" well before X-Prize itself was claimed. Some went "pop" at last years X-Prize Cup. Nobody particularly cared and it certainly has not put the stop to industry, because its the part of normal evolutionary process.
Ok, there havent been any paying customers onboard this far, but i am pretty sure it wont make much difference, just louder noise in the media. At most the one operator flying the vehicle will go "pop" as well but it wont end the industry. Even if regulators start getting silly ideas, it will result with operating companies moving off shore and thats it.

*sigh*

I've actually been through many many times. Naturally you reject the argument for a variety of, frankly, "illogical" grounds.

But that's all you seem to be able to do these days.

Nobody is God, but in my religion Burt is a Major Prophet.

Naturally you reject the argument for a variety of, frankly, "illogical" grounds.

Still waiting for an "argument" to "reject," Dave. Surely if there's so much historical evidence for a single accident single-handedly destroying an entire industry, you can show us just a little (and no, the Hindenburg doesn't count--dirigibles were on their way out anyway)?

The Hindenberg is a good example, though, of how a large but fragile industry can be dealt a death blow by a single P.R. disaster. Are there any prospects of space tourism becoming a popular pasttime in the foreseeable future, like flying on an airliner or taking a train (or even dirigible passage back in the day)? No. If it were, BR's point about the need to maintain the veneer of safety would be a good one, so as not to scare off the average traveller.

But space tourism can certainly aim at evolving from being a niche industry serving a few very wealthy adventure-seekers, like Everest guiding, to becoming something generally available to those who seek risk and have the resources to engage in extreme activity, like skydiving or some of the riskier forms of skiing. Worrying about mass popularity at this time is way premature IMHO.