What do you think about Burt Rutan and the Spaceship One, winner of the Ansari X Prize?
Burt Rutan is a great aerospace designer, perhaps the best of the world. He has a great deal of experience in aeronautics and now is gaining more about space. Rutan was, so far the only successful X Prize competitor able to put together his experience and the necessary funds to make possible the revolutionary step towards private spaceflight. We are more than happy than Rutan collected the Ansari X Prize. Our position is that we did not have the possibility of winning it before the deadline, December 2004, and the fact that somebody else has won it was the best way to demonstrate that private spaceflight is possible. Rutan made it easier for the rest of the competitors by showing space can be reached without government involvement.
