It's a culture clash. Rutan despises NASA bureaucracy, as any entrepreneur would. But a 100 person company won't put 4 astronauts on the moon or mars... You really need checkers, checking checkers check when you light the fuse and your committed. No pulloff on the highway to orbit!
BTW if you want to save about 100 billion bucks, we don't need a new Orion launch vehicle. All we need is a new Apollo capsule and to man rate the Atlas V, or Atlas V Heavy... perhaps 5 bil max.
The Shuttle sounded like a good idea 30 years ago, but it's major design flaw was you don't put the passengers next to the propellant. They need to go on top.
Enjoy NASA while we have it. Their director, Mike Griffin, is rolling the dice with "all in" almost every launch to meet Bush's mandate. He launched last time over the objection of the safety and engineering chief, and yesterday he rolled the shuttle back to the pad with a hurricane bearing down on it... sooner or later your going to roll snake eyes...
BTW if you want to save about 100 billion bucks, we don't need a new Orion launch vehicle. All we need is a new Apollo capsule and to man rate the Atlas V, or Atlas V Heavy... perhaps 5 bil max.
The Shuttle sounded like a good idea 30 years ago, but it's major design flaw was you don't put the passengers next to the propellant. They need to go on top.
Enjoy NASA while we have it. Their director, Mike Griffin, is rolling the dice with "all in" almost every launch to meet Bush's mandate. He launched last time over the objection of the safety and engineering chief, and yesterday he rolled the shuttle back to the pad with a hurricane bearing down on it... sooner or later your going to roll snake eyes...