Credit: Michael Belfiore

How long have you been thinking about air launch to orbit?

My work on a large aircraft designed to launch orbital boosters began in the early 90s, shortly after we (Scaled) started work with Orbital Sciences, building wings and tail surfaces for their air-launched Pegasus first stage booster. I was unable to convince Orbital that Scaled should build an airplane to launch Pegasus, so they modified an L1011 airliner for their launches.

How far along had you gotten in creating design concepts before Paul Allen approached you about Stratolaunch?

In 1991, to address a requirement to launch a booster heavier than 500,000 pounds, I did the Model 205 and 206 preliminary designs. These configurations used engines, landing gear, and other systems from the Boeing 747. Later, to address other requirements, I did preliminary designs for other large aircraft, some that had rocket systems so that the space booster could be released in a steep, rocket-propelled climb.

However, the configuration revealed in December to meet the Paul Allen Stratolaunch requirement is not my design. About 10 years ago, to encourage innovation and design responsibility among the young engineers at Scaled, I took on the status of design advisor, while the title of Principal Configuration Designer went to a very talented team of designers, including Jim Tighe, Cory Bird, Bob Morgan and others. Except for the Bipod roadable aircraft, all the airplanes designed at Scaled after SpaceShipOne were not Burt Rutan designs.

About five to six years ago, Scaled hired many new engineers, most of them right out of college. This group of engineers includes several very talented configuration designers who will be the Principal Designers of the future Scaled aerospace platforms.

If youre going to use parts from them anyway, why not just fuse two 747s together rather than creating a whole new vehicle?

Specialized new aircraft for space launch, like the White Knight, the White Knight Two, and Stratolaunch, are optimized to launch their intended payloads. They have much better performance for the intended mission than you would get by joining or modifying existing designs. Joining two 747s would not get you an airplane capable of launching the Stratolaunch booster.

At the Stratolaunch announcement in December, you mentioned that air launch could be just one of the breakthroughs that will be needed to achieve truly routine, safe, affordable orbital transportation. What other kinds of breakthroughs might be needed?

To allow public access to orbit, we would need breakthroughs that would lower the cost by a lot more than an order of magnitude and increase safety by a factor of 100 as compared to every launch system used since the first manned space flight. I think airborne launch will be a significant part of the safety solution. Breakthroughs to do the rest of the job are unknown. If they were known, they would be solutions, not breakthroughs.

We must ask: Is Stratolaunch at least partly an excuse to build the worlds biggest airplane?

It would be nice to not have to build the worlds largest airplane to do the Stratolaunch mission. I do not look at it an excuse.

What would NASA have to do to get its mojo back?

NASA works for the White House. There are many at NASA that wish they were building a modern replacement for the Shuttle. However, they had marching orders to instead work on other things, some of which should have no place in a research organization.

What have you been up to since retiring from Scaled Composites?

I had no specific plans for post-retirement. However, I am indeed still enjoying airplane design.

Where are you living now, and do you miss Mojave?

I live on I-90 near Coeur dAlene, Idaho. This state is refreshing in many ways as compared to California. We love it here. I spent nearly 46 years in the Mojave desert and that was more than enough.

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