Word: rutan
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...number of the Founders were struck at how open Branson and the legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan have been, inviting them to Rutan's closed shop out in the Mojave Desert, to the Virgin Galactic launch in New York, and yes, to Branson's private island. "Richard can carry on research until 2012 as far as I'm concerned. It's such fun," says John Goodwin, a 62-year-old retired candy wholesaler from England, who talked while his fellow travelers played tennis in the rain. Goodwin had visited Rutan's workshop. "There he is, answering your questions...
...unstrap and float weightless around the cabin. Earth will look like a shiny ball with white swirls surrounded by a totally black sky. Diving back into the atmosphere will be a wild ride, peaking at nearly 6 Gs--twice the rush you feel on the average roller coaster. Rutan's genius is his "carefree re-entry" design: SpaceShipTwo folds up its wings for re-entry then transforms into a conventional glider for a gentle slide home to the runway...
...Necker Island, Branson gathered some of the Founders to meet Rutan and chat about spaceship design, safety issues and preparation possibilities for the G-forces and sensory overload of a first-time astronaut--like how to puke in space. They debated who would be the first paying customers. The hedge-fund honcho from California? The Internet couple from England? The hot German babe in the bikini? Or the guy from New Zealand who changed his family name to Rocket? Physicist Stephen Hawking, who believes that mankind must colonize space, sent word that he wants in--which would allow...
Benson is probably the least known of the space entrepreneurs, although he collaborated with Rutan on the hybrid motor that rocketed SpaceShipOne into the history books. (Just who provided what expertise for the motor is no laughing matter. It's the center of a heated dispute between the two.) Benson, 61, is not new to new industries, having got his start in the nascent Internet world. In 1984 he created full-text indexing and search and sold Compusearch to an East Coast investment group for about $10 million. After a decade of work on satellites, he hopes to raise...
...quite knows where it will all end up. "I have a hunch that the most important reason we're going to space is not known now," says Rutan, who also points to similarities with the early computer industry, which evolved from the Army's need to improve its ballistics calculations. He and Branson have 100 engineers looking at new technology for both orbital and suborbital flights as well as lunar flybys in a "glass bubble." On Necker, the two men pored over ideas for a plane that would fly orbitally, cutting flying time between New York City and London...