Burt Rutan

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Burt Rutan 2011
SpaceShipOne in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC between the Spirit of Saint Louis and the Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis"
The Rutan VariViggen

Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Portland , Oregon , USA ) is an American aerospace engineer.

Life

Raised in Dinuba , California , studied Rutan at California Polytechnic State University and earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering in 1965 . He then joined the US Air Force and worked as a flight test engineer at Edwards Air Force Base in California. In March 1972, he accepted the post of Director of the Bede Test Center for Bede Aircraft in Newton, Kansas . In 1974 he moved with his family to Mojave , California and founded the Rutan Aircraft Factory .

In 1982 Burt Rutan founded the company Scaled Composites , which now has more than 200 employees developing unconventional aircraft prototypes, at times at a rate of one type per year. The shape and construction of the designs are sometimes daring, so some of the models are constructed asymmetrically. With its Voyager design , a non-stop circumnavigation of the world without refueling was possible for the first time.

One of the last constructions is the first privately financed spacecraft SpaceShipOne . On March 3, 2005, the GlobalFlyer constructed by Rutan successfully circumnavigated the world with just one pilot without refueling.

At the end of July 2005 he founded the private space company Virgin Galactic together with the British billionaire Richard Branson . In the future, the company will operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo space planes .

At the end of 2011, Microsoft founder Paul Allen announced that he would offer rocket launches from the air with his new company Stratolaunch Systems . The carrier aircraft with a wingspan of 117 meters was developed by Rutan's company Scaled Composites.

Rutan has repeatedly denied man-made global warming in public .

Prices

Burt Rutan has received many prizes and awards, including:

Constructions

For a list of the aircraft types developed by Burt Rutan, see Rutan Aircraft Factory and Scaled Composites .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Donath: Stratolaunch Press Kit. (PDF, 0.4 MB) (No longer available online.) Stratolaunch Systems, archived from the original on January 31, 2012 ; accessed on December 24, 2011 .
  2. ^ No Need to Panic About Global Warming . In: The Wall Street Journal , January 27, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2013.
  3. ↑ A Cool-Headed Climate Conversation With Aerospace Legend Burt Rutan . In: Forbes , September 9, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Burt Rutan  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Rutan, Burt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rutan, Elbert Leander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American aerospace engineer, entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Portland , Oregon