Watching aviation/aerospace has never been more exciting

NextGen is looking more and more doable and wonderful. This will greatly enhance the efficiency, safety and capacity of our system and thus improve the capabilities of airports.

In the meantime, privately-funded space programs are out there, each trying to beat the other. One of the most interesting—in which Branson’s Virgin Galactic plays a big role—includes a mother ship designed by Burt Rutan. Another includes Burt himself, the deep pockets and great vision of Paul Allen (of Microsoft fame and fortune), and two other companies—Dynetics and StratoLaunch from my old home base, Huntsville, AL. Together, they plan to build the largest airplane in history to launch space rockets from high altitudes. Don’t laugh. Remember, we’re talking about Burt Rutan and Paul Allen. They’ve already won the Ansari prize for getting into space first with a privately-funded spacecraft.

The Huntsville participation is fascinating. Huntsville has been heavily involved in the Space Race as far back as the post-Sputnik 1950s. Huntsville was the home of Wernher von Braun’s German Rocket Team. It was von Braun who told JFK that we really could “put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth” by the end of the 1960s (A rumor had it that when von Braun came back to Huntsville the rocket engineers asked him, “You told Kennedy we could do WHAT?”).

Another rumor had it that after the Moon Race—with its huge guvmint space budget—was over, Huntsville would be in deep doo-doo. The truth was quite different. Huntsville spawned a number of privately-held aerospace companies that thrived. Evidently, those companies and others are now leaping into the void—as Dan Namowitz put it in AOPA Pilot—created when NASA stopped the shuttle flights.

These are serious people who are betting serious money that the next round of space breakthroughs will come from private industry.

And don’t Burt Rutan and company look great? This guy used to build little kit planes, now he’s in the forefront of the new space race.

This is going to be fun to watch.