Posted: May 05, 2006 02:25 am EDT
"Could everyone in this room who has been to the moon please reach up a hand." One hand was raised in the packed ballroom at LA's Sheraton Airport hotel.
"Now everyone who have been to space please raise your hands." About five hands flew up. "And now, everyone who wants to go to space, please stand up." 200 folks jumped to their feet.

The deserted Spaceport

A week back, ExWeb headed out to the Mojave desert to pay a visit to Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. A 3 hour drive out of LA we approached a dusty little town. A big, faded sign of Burt Rutan sat at the city entrance, and a small street sign pointed the direction to "Mojave Spaceport." But where was it?

All we could see was dirt and sand, except for some hangars and unmarked airplanes sitting far on the horizon. The sleepy town of Mojave sported a few shops and a gas station.

"Excuse me, where is the Spaceport, please?" we inquired with the gas station guy.
"Que?"
"The Spaceport, Burt Rutan...you know?"
The man gave us a puzzled, suspicious look: "Space...? No, sir," he said with a heavy Spanish accent.
"But surely you must know of Spaceship One? You are what - like 2000 people in this town - there's a big sign of the guy 10 yards down the street - of course you have to know about the Space Ship, Burt Rutan, the Mojave Spaceport ?!"
"No sir, sorry sir."

Rutan's black leather jacket and Branson's blue eyes

We found Scaled Composites at last, the office sitting in one of a number of uniform hangars forming the Mojave Airport. Inside, a simple bookshelf displayed Rutans many prizes. A busy receptionist told us there were no tours of the premises.

The construction of SpaceShip 2 is a top-secret venture, bankrolled by Richard Branson in bitter competition with SpaceAdventures and various space travel outfit wannabes.

A week later, we finally met with Rutan - in a packed LA Sheraton Ballroom hosting the 25th NSS Space conference. His hair long and grey, Rutan wore a black leather jacket in stark contrast to the Virgin galactic management team - donned in space-white t-shirts with a round Virgin Galactic's logo print; "Richard's iris," they told us.

Spaceports with no rockets

Burt looked a bit tired. His dream, he said, is to go to the moon and for his grandkids to go to the moons of other planets. But it's no mean feat, even for a top engineer: "If we are to go to (real) space we must have breakthroughs we can't imagine yet," said the genius space plane designer. "We can't do it using Russian technology, it's 40 years old for Christsake. We shouldn't do it only to make money either - and another thing, on the news - there's all talk about billions invested in Spaceports - while there are no rockets!"

Rutan was referring to SpaceAdventures - but not only them. The race is on for the space tourist industry - a race where everyone seems to be losing money right now and must outrun maverick opportunists ready to propel people to the edge of the atmosphere in ships made of parts assembled on eBay. Much like on Everest, clients are easily bought for a dollar off and a smooth rap can win over great engineering even when it comes to seriously dangerous gear.

Regulating the industry

Rutan talked about FAA and regulations. Too much - and too little of it: "FAA need to monitor developers of new spaceships rather than the safety of bystanders," he said. "But you can't regulate something that hasn't been invented yet - you don't know what to outlaw," he added and offered a hands-on solution: "Require people who build spaceships to fly their kids in them first!"

Currently lacking a private spaceship standard, FAA should regulate not the spaceships but the people who build them, "You can't fly not because your ship is not safe, but because you are not safe," Rutan said bad outfitters should be told.

The Virgin management team

The Virgin management team was much more revved up though: The guys presented their 100 "Founders" (first 100 full paying clients) of whom they'd brought a good number to the conference. Who'd be "the first in Space?" they challenged from stage. Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11 Astronaut) sat in the row below, smiling.

But how do we get to the moon (without the government) then? Fact is, Burt has no idea. "If I knew that I would be working on it right now - heck - why would I be in the sub-orbit business?" And then he talked about his favorite book right now "Things we believe but cannot prove."

In fact, that was Rutan's final message: If we want to reach outside our limits we must believe it can be done, even if we don't know exactly how. "Why spending billions on spaceports when we have no rockets?" he thundered. "We need breakthroughs we can't imagine today. Besides, this is not only about money - it's about getting people into space."

The Virgin Galactic management team showed another picture of Branson's iris and one of a female flight attendant in a sexy outfit. "Poor Rutan," someone muttered.

Nevertheless, the standing ovations Burt Rutan got on the dinner award later that night made clear that the dusty Mojave Spaceport will need bigger signs soon - and they'll be designed by Philippe Starck - no matter what the genious engineer might think of it.

Next part 2, Space Adventures and Martha Stewart, Stanford University and Google maps.

The Planetary Society and The National Space Society joined hands for the 25th annual NSS Space Conference. Sponsored by NASA, the event kicked off in LA on Space Day, May 4, and the opening day was proclaimed 'Space Venturing Day' in Los Angeles. And just like on Oscar's night; everyone was there - including team Pythom!



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