Wheres the innovation?
Dick Rutan, the pilot best known for flying the futuristic Voyager plane around the world in 1986, says the retirement of the Concorde is the latest example of a vacuum in aerospace innovation. “Some of our high-technology airplanes are being retired, and there’s no propensity toward improving them and moving on to the next generation of airplanes,” he says. He points out that in the 1950s and 1960s, aircraft were developed that fly at about three-quarters the speed of sound. “Thirty years later, we are still driving around at a slow speed,” he says. “The only advancements we have made are in avionics and electronics.” The space shuttle is another example. “It’s embarrassing. They want to fly an antique for the next 20 years. Where is the young president who stood up in the ’60s and said we’re going to the moon, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard?” But that was a different time and a different economy. There were no corporate jets or Internet connections or cell phones. Roxbur
