JAMES WYNBRANDT, EAA 568059
Photo by Mark Greenberg
On Tuesday, July 29, 2008, one day after unveiling the space launch vehicle WhiteKnight Two ( WK2) in Mojave, California, Burt Rutan, EAA
26033, and Sir Richard Branson stood before an overflow crowd at the Honda
Pavilion on the grounds of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. The gathering, a forum
on Virgin Galactic’s space program, had the intensity of a revival meeting as
the partners—Rutan’s Scaled Composites developed the suborbital system
and Branson’s Virgin Galactic is its “launch” customer—spun their vision of
an outer space open to the general public. You could almost hear a chorus
of rapturous “Amens!” as Rutan spoke about suborbital flights for the masses,
space resorts, and civilian flights around the moon like he was talking about
reaching the promised land. For those of us weaned on dreams of space
travel, from Buck Rogers to Star Wars, he was.
WK2, also known as the mothership Eve, is the first step in getting there,
stage one of the first system created to carry paying passengers beyond
Earth’s atmosphere. Energized by the reception—” This audience has more
passion than any other audience I’ve ever talked to,” he told the crowd,
“That’s why I love coming to Oshkosh!”—Rutan made a promise to the
assemblage: “We will bring WhiteKnight Two next year to display it to you.”
