Help Wanted: Spaceship builders with "fire in their eyes"

After a successful X-Prize flight more than a year ago, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan mocked NASA a bit as he spoke to the crowd sweating it out in the Mojave Desert.

Today his annoyance with NASA is just as strong it seems.

In the article Burt Rutan: Building The People's Spaceship, Rutan states, "In fact, it’s more dangerous to fly in space in America now than it was earlier. It certainly is more expensive...more difficult. We’ve been relying on our taxpayer-funded research organization, Na Say, excuse me, NASA."

Instead, Rutan would like to see NASA focus on research that they provide to American industry to develop - bringing the entrepreneurial attitude and real competition into space development.

There are few new details in the article regarding when SpaceShipTwo will launch, unfortunately, but it's good reading for Rutan fans.

More important, however, if you are interested in building spaceships, Rutan is looking for help. "We have a lot of openings for people...not just engineers, but people that can help us build research spaceships and production spaceships," Rutan explained, people with "fire in their eyes."

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