# Rutan's Flight Testing Lunar Gear NOW! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 20, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693 "2005-05-20T03:03:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/1 "2005-05-20T03:03:33Z")
[Scroll down to the bottom of the page.](http://64.78.33.215/index.cfm?fuseaction=projects.view&workid=CCD3097A-96B6-175C-97F15F270F2B83AA) > [@](#): > > t/Space has stretched its initial NASA funding – which the agency expected could only support paper studies – to include flight tests of several key aspects of the proposed system. One such test series began in May 2005 to validate the simulations developed for the release method to be used by the VLA. Marti Sarigul-Klijn leads this project, described in a paper in the t/Space documents library. A 23% size test article of the CXV and its booster was carried aloft by Scaled Composites’ Proteus aircraft from the Mojave Spaceport. It demonstrated that the Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop (TLAD) method primarily invented by Dr. Sarigul-Klijn performs as predicted. TLAD enables a belly-mounted booster to begin a slow rotation as it drops away from the carrier aircraft. This turns the booster toward the vertical before its first stage begins thrusting. Other systems, such as the Orbital Sciences’ Pegasus or the earlier X-15 aircraft, require wings to make this “gamma turn.” The TLAD method thus reduces system weight by avoiding the need for wings. Damn, that man is a genius! ---
**Author:** ![pilot141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e0b2c6/32.png) [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/2 "2005-05-20T05:41:01Z")
Go go Burt Rutan! Why can’t he design some super-efficient canard-sporting airline-type aircraft that I can actually fly? Throw in some funky offset engines or even better, a completely separate cockpit and I’d be in pilot heaven! But I guess completely inventing re-entry for both the Earth (Spaceship One) and the moon (CXV) might have kept him busy… ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/3 "2005-05-20T07:10:25Z")
Can we get Rutan to just design us a new national space agency? ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/4 "2005-05-20T08:28:10Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > Can we get Rutan to just design us a new national space agency? If that man can get us back to the moon, I’m prepared to accept him as my personal Lord and Savior. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/5 "2005-05-20T15:12:21Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > If that man can get us back to the moon, I’m prepared to accept him as my personal Lord and Savior. Rutan 3:16, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/6 "2005-05-20T15:42:41Z")
Rutan, Rutan, he’s our man!! If he can’t hit the moon, nobody can!!! ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/7 "2005-05-20T16:09:28Z")
I’ve thought, on and off, that Richard Branson makes a half-decent Delos D. Harriman. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutans-flight-testing-lunar-gear-now/304693/8 "2005-05-20T23:26:29Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > Rutan 3:16, anyone? “And at the 18th hour Apollo cried out in a loud voice, ‘Von Braun, Von Braun, why hath thou forsaken me?’”