RUTAN UNVEILS PRIVATELY FUNDED SPACECRAFT.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

MOJAVE - Famed aircraft designer Burt Rutan on Friday unveiled a spacecraft - built in secret and financed without government help - that he hopes will spur other private efforts to revolutionize manned space travel.

In a hangar packed with an audience that included a retired astronaut, the first space tourist, a congressman, test pilots and NASA officials, Rutan's workers pulled away a curtain to reveal SpaceShipOne - a three- person craft meant to rocket to 62 miles above Earth, then glide to a landing.

``I'll stick my neck way out and say, Yeah, I think I can do that,'' said Rutan, whose most famous aircraft was the Voyager, which circled the globe in 1986 on one tank of gas.

``If I can do it, with this little company and people in Mojave, there'll be a lot more people who will say, Yeah, I can do it.''

Rutan's guests said if anybody can succeed it will be Rutan.

``I think he'll make it work,'' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Pete Worden, who had worked with Rutan on a now-canceled rocket program. Worden's judgment of SpaceShipOne: ``Pretty cool.''

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Director Kevin Petersen called Rutan's spaceflight concepts innovative. He said he didn't know enough about the program to rate its chances of success, but added: ``If anybody can do it, they can probably do it.''

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who made the first moon landing in 1969 with Neil Armstrong, said Rutan's program could influence NASA.

``It's a significant challenge,'' Aldrin said. ``It's going to open their eyes in many ways.''

Painted in white with blue stars, the 25-foot-long SpaceShipOne is designed to be carried aloft by another Rutan-designed aircraft, a twin-engine jet called the White Knight.

Released at about 53,000 feet, the spacecraft will ignite its rocket engine and go nearly straight up at Mach 3.5 - about 2,400 mph.

It will reach about 62 miles above Earth's surface - as high as the X-15 rocket planes in the 1960s, using the same airborne launch technique. Then it will glide back to land at Mojave Airport, where Rutan's Scaled Composites factory is located.

To slow its descent for re-entry into the atmosphere, the spacecraft will use a typically unconventional Rutan concept: Twin tail booms that pivot upward, acting as a giant speed brake.

Built at an undisclosed price, this is the first privately built manned spacecraft, Rutan says.

He won't say when it will fly - the first flight simply hanging beneath its launch aircraft, and later ones in glide tests and then under rocket power to higher and higher altitudes.

Friday's unveiling will also be the only event open to news crews.

``We never, ever announce flight test schedules,'' Rutan said. That, he said, just puts unnecessary pressure on crews to fly to meet an arbitrary deadline and gives the news media a way to judge a project a failure if they don't fly.

In space travel, Rutan hopes his example will spur the same sort of innovation and experimentation that occurred after the Wright brothers flew their airplane in Paris in 1909.

By five years after the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903, Rutan said, only 10 pilots had flown powered airplanes. Within three years after the Paris demonstration, he said, there were thousands of pilots and hundreds of different types of aircraft.

Some of the designs were bad, he said, but some of what was judged to be nonsense turned out to be innovations.

``The aircraft was designed by natural selection,'' Rutan said.

In contrast, in the 42 years since the first manned spaceflight, there have only been 110 pilots and 431 people in 241 spaceflights, both Russian and American, Rutan said.

So far, Rutan said, government agencies have always been in charge of space travel, and they have always done it for political motivations.

``I want to see if I can do it,'' Rutan said.

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color in Valley and AV edition only) Aircraft designer Burt Rutan showed off his latest creation - SpaceShipOne, a three-person spacecraft built with private funds - at his plant in Mojave on Friday.

(2 -- color in AV edition only -- ran in Valley and AV edition only) The Burt Rutan-designed White Knight, a twin-engine jet, will carry his SpaceShipOne aloft to 53,000 feet for launch.

(3 -- color -- ran in AV edition only) The SpaceShipOne's multiple portholes allow a stronger, pressurized cockpit.

(4 -- color in AV edition only -- ran in AV and SAC edition only) Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left, attends the unveiling of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer