Rutan: "School's out! I need risk takers"
Nov 22, 2004 02: 36 EST
Burt Rutan made a speech Friday at a California University and the future looks bright:
3-4 years: The first commercial space travel
5 years: 3,000 astronauts
15 years: 50,000 astronauts, space hotels
By 2050, spacelines so common that passengers "will be bored looking out of a suborbital space flight as we do on an airliner," said Rutan according to Chicago Tribune and several media.
But, he also said, it will take risk-taking adventurers to get there, a new generation of 'superheroes'.
Fiery eyes and soaked in sweat
When he fills jobs, he says he doesn't look at classroom grades, but rather for fire in the eyes of his hires. He expects his designers to hold their own on the workshop floor, where designs become real.
He wants employees who don't mind "sweating like hell." And he even told one recruit to quit college early because "all he was doing was this liberal (education) sludge."
You must fail
"I prefer your mind not being poisoned with all this garbage," he said Friday, causing a few to laugh. "I encourage my people to fail because if they're not failing, they're not going to have a breakthrough." About NASA: "There has only been risk-adverse, 'don't-try-tha' attitudes, I'm not sure NASA is going to be a relevant player in suborbital space access."
After his speech, many students told Rutan that they were inspired.
Image compiled by ExWeb, courtesy airventure.org (Rutan) and aiai.ed.ac.uk (space car).
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