100 Quotes by Burt Rutan

My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different perspective in which I am an expert … For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion - 'if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who's merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying'. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.

Everything looks nonsensical before it works.

The Russians did much bigger space launch vehicles for launching satellites and for getting men in orbit. They did that much sooner than America because America was very good at something else.

America was good enough to make a small compact lighter weight nuclear weapon. The Russians still had these big clunky heavy ones, so they had to build the big boosters in the arm's war, so now all of the sudden Russia could take off the shelf and put into orbit much heavier things than we could, so that's why they had the original leadership.

I like to call the difference between research and development. Some people use that interchangeably. They'll say R&D. They're two totally different things.

A true creator researches how to have confidence in nonsense.

A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut can't be creative. He has to follow a predetermined detailed checklist written by an engineer and if he gets a little creative he'll never fly again.

Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard's epoch flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive government efforts. By contrast, our program involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable.

I believe that research, that you can claim that you're doing research only if half of the people, and I'm talking about half of the experts, believe that the goal is impossible.