Burt Rutan, Cooler Than Burt Reynolds

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LRC linked to this great article about Burt Rutan's speech at a Reason event. Not only is Rutan a maverick aircraft (and now spacecraft) designer, but he's also got a great grasp of Hayekian economics:

The other thing is that [Rutan's] upfront about is that the early flights will be mainly for fun. "Quite frankly, we don't know what space flight is for," he told the Reason audience. "We'll find out when thousands of people have done it and I have dozens of competitors."

I should mention that after my laudatory LRC and Mises.org articles on SpaceShipOne, some purists emailed me and said that Rutan has done things that aren't so wonderful from a free market point-of-view. (I don't remember exactly what; I think seeking patent protection and something else.) Oh well, no one's perfect. The guy is still cool.

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