Rutan and Allen win the X-Prize, and look ahead to the future: After X Prize win, SpaceShipOne has higher goal

Hours after they secured the coveted $10 million Ansari X Prize Monday, visionary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan and billionaire financier Paul Allen turned their focus to an even loftier goal, space passenger travel.

After their sleek SpaceShipOne streaked to a record altitude above the sun-drenched California desert to nab aviation's best-known purse, they greeted test pilot Brian Binnie with champagne, then declared they were ready to take on the legends of aerospace.

"Quite frankly, I think the big guys — the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston — think we're a bunch of home builders who put a rocket in a Long Easy," Rutan said, referring to one of his recreational aircraft designs. " ... I think they're looking at each other now and saying, 'We're screwed.' "

Not quite, Burt -- we were actually looking at what you did and thinking: "Why in the hell can't we do the same thing?" (I know, I know...six/half-a-dozen...)

Speaking by telephone from Air Force One, President Bush congratulated the SpaceShipOne team, said Dr. Peter Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation chairman. In his private call, the president characterized their "tremendous achievement" as an important step in "opening the space frontier," according to Diamandis.

That could be a good sign.

Posted by T.L. James on October 5, 2004 06:14 AM