Burt Rutan's Race to Space: The Magician of Mojave and His Flying Innovations
“Burt will always be remembered as a visionary aircraft designer, his unique configurations a testament to his genius. However, a more subtle but undoubtedly key part of his success is his ability to make his unique visions resonate in those around him. If Burt’s only contribution were ideas he couldn’t communicate, he’d have executed on a couple and vanished into the background. His true genius is his capability to excite others, to make them believe in the unimaginable and to lead them on an unapologetic search for the unique. This book is sure to bring the reader along on that quest by detailing the unique concepts and the amazing stories behind them.”—Matt Stinemetze, Project Engineer SpaceShipOne, Project Manager SpaceShipTwo Program“Dan Linehan has produced an amazing narrative clearly explaining the technical evolution of how Burt Rutan founded two small aerospace companies that eventually lead to the capture the 10 million dollar X-prize awarded to the first company to shoot a manned, privately-funded spacecraft into outerspace twice within two weeks. I know. I was the lead structural analyst for Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and witness to SpaceShipOne's construction, operation, and ultimate success. And now, the next generation SpaceShipTwo is designed to take passengers like you and me there. If you long to someday visit space yourself, Burt Rutan’s Race to Space is a must read. It very accurately captures the early evolution of space travel that will someday be as common place as airline travel is today.”—Dan Kreigh, Senior Structural Engineer, Scaled Composites, and Inventor of the IFOINTERNET REVIEW OF BOOKS"Rutan is a genius, and while this beautifully illustrated book has the word "space" in its title, it is also a brief history of the man's accomplishments, which range from contributing to work on the military F-4 Phantom to designing his Long-EZ, the Defiant, Starship, and other single-and-multi-passenger propeller-and-jet-powered aircraft. All that imagination, all that hard work, all that experimental use of composites and exotic airfoils are the foundation for "SpaceShipOne, which won the coveted $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight." Informative text, beautiful photographs chronicling the life of a genius, a man sure to find his creations in outer space again."AIRPLANISTA MAGAZINE"Unless you are a scholar of everything Rutan, I promise there will be many, many surprises in this book. And you will come away from it with a much more profound respect for a man who, in my opinion, is modern aviation’s most innovative aerospace engineer. "COSMIC LOGIC (MSNBC.COM)"Until the next-gen spacecraft actually fire up their rockets, space dreamers will have to content themselves with lower-flying adventures such as zero-gravity flights and astronaut training sessions. Or you could read the book: "Burt Rutan's Race to Space," a new volume from Dan Linehan, author of the "SpaceShipOne" coffee-table book, has just been published. While "SpaceShipOne" focused on the run-up to the rocket plane's history-making flights, "Burt Rutan's Race to Space: The Magician of Mojave and His Flying Innovations" takes a wider look at the aerospace guru's career, from his days as a designer of homebuilt airplanes to his work on SpaceShipTwo. Rutan's work on record-setting long-distance aircraft such as the Voyager and the GlobalFlyer is well-known, but I was surprised to see some of the other not-so-ready-for-prime-time projects in which Scaled Composites played a role, including the DC-X rocket prototype, the Roton test vehicle and NASA's X-38 crew return vehicle. "EAA SPORT AVIATION"Author Dan Linehan provides the most comprehensive work to date on Rutan's career -- from his post-collegiate days as an Air Force flight test engineer at Edwards Air Force base to starting the Rutan Aircraft Factory and, later, Scaled Composites in Mojave, California. The chronological journey begins before the VariViggen and concludes with SpaceShipTwo, featuring Burt's personal photos and some fascinating sketches and drawings throughout the book. "