Flutterby™! : Unsafe at any Warp Factor

Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne was holding forth over the weekend about the coming era of space tourism. He mentions that it will be risky, and will result in some "smoking craters in the desert". I suppose there are a lot of us who would accept the risk to get humanity into space. However, I still have some nagging doubts. I watched the Science Channel documentary Black Sky and was completely enthalled. But damn, they were lucky! There were at least three moments when the thing could have gone very bad, including the landing gear collapsing on one landing. This ship is far more like the Wright Flyer than Rutan might care to admit.

TechCentralStation has an interesting piece on how dangerous this thing really is, as well as a spirited riposte by another author. I guess I'm afraid that if Richard Branson gets blown up in this thing that's all people will remember. Of course, if his balloon spring a leak or he fell off of Mt. Everest, everybody would say, "yes, yes, too bad but what do you expect?". Perceptions matter a lot here Certainly SpaceShipOne is only the first step, but I think Rutan has a long way to go before getting a real orbital vehicle.