Burt Rutan: Entrepreneurs are the future of space flight

http://www.ted.com In this passionate talk, legendary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan lambasts the US government-funded space program for stagnating and asks entrepreneurs to pick up where NASA has left off.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
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[dude58677]

Burt Rutan is despised by the media for the exact same reasons that Ron Paul is. Burt Rutan has made NASA look like a bunch of idiots when it comes to reentry. He also refused to help Lockheed Martin build bombs and instead chose to help the public get into space. The media such as NBC is owned by defense contractors. I'm sick and tired of explaining to people who Burt Rutan is but it is because of the media that I have to.

[manganl]

Burt Rutan understands the very simple concept that we cannot keep all our eggs in one basket. Humanity needs to be viably established off-planet before some earthbound psychopaths destroy life on Earth.

May he live long and prosper and retire on the Moon.

[Rossome4040]

Glo0balization is killing inginuity and invention by creating monopoly's that can steal inventions and inovations and scrap them so that no one can have them and the global elite can continue degrading and genocidally socially engineering society... That is why Russia is more like the USA used to be and the USA and west is more like the east was 20 years ago.

[TheTrieye]

cool

[iugey]

Burt Rutan is awesome. I am inspired to pursue a career in aerospace!

[Sentios]

I agree that it's innovative individuals who bring about the future, but if this generation of profit seekers lead the way the common man won't be able to afford it anyways.

[cooljool1]

People always focus on the technical benefit of NASA, ignoring its drain on industry. Now that NASA is gone, we are finally seeing companies like Virgin Galactic come into existence. Without NASA, however, these companies would have been on the scene sooner

[Jcthor96]

Thats my uncles dad :D thats awsome right

[98rallets]

@DeoVindice00 I'm confused too. Maybe the Bush administration's specific space policies could have been better, but Bush was way more pro-private-sector than just about anybody else.

[98rallets]

@Goldiney After the US vs USSR space race that Mr. Rutan so eloquently described ended, NASA has done nothing for us. What benefit does sending a space probe past Neptune have for our society? The private sector innovates and succeeds because it must to survive, while the public sector does nothing because it's insulated from reality.

[Tio2Man1969]

I would sweep floors, take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, cut the grass, get everyone coffee, clean the offices....whatever it would take just to get my foot in the door at RAF/Scaled Composites and work my way up to test Pilot!!!! Could you imagine being under the wing of his brother Dick Rutan? Would be AWESOME!