SPACE.com landed an exclusive interview with Burt Rutan, published back on Friday. By and large there’s not a lot new here: many of the comments he made here are similar to comments he has made in the past, such as at the ISDC in May. He revealed that one of his biggest concerns was potential investors getting cold feet, which is why he picked Richard Branson over some alternatives to develop SpaceShipTwo, despite Branson’s outspokenness. “He was selected as an investment source because he was very early telling everybody what he was going to do, and usually I’m against that. But he’s putting his reputation on the goal of this program… doing that on day one.”
Rutan also said that being able to experience weightlessness is “a close second” to getting the view of the Earth from space. That’s why SS2 will have a large cabin so people can float about during their four minutes in weightlessness. Also, the onset of gravity will be gradual, taking more than 40 seconds to reach 1-g; enough time, he feels to get passengers strapped in before they experience stronger accelerations during reentry.
Those reading Rutan’s comments closely will also pick up on his choice of words: “I’m focusing now on going ahead and doing something that I never did with airplanes. That is, not just do research but go ahead and build something that would be certified. Produce it and sell it to spacelines and let them go out there and compete with each other to fly the public.” Also: “That’s the reason we feel we’ll easily be able to certify people floating around and getting into a seat…more of a bed to lay flat.” Notice the use of “certified” and “certify”: suborbital spacecraft are licensed, not certified (something the FAA will take great pains to point out), although Rutan rarely hides his dissatisfaction with that approach, preferring aircraft-like certification to launch vehicle licensing.
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