Mr. Rutan retired a few months ago but agreed to sit on the new company's board.
WSJ: Microsoft Co-Founder to Build Massive Jet for Space Launches
Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne is the sole DIY rocket to put a human into space.
But Burt Rutan, 61, has only ever read one sci-fi book: Carl Sagan's Contact.
Burt Rutan, the brains behind SpaceShipOne, and Paul Allen, its moneybags, are not alone.
The films, showing man in space, on the Moon, on Mars, and the "unknown", fascinated the boy Rutan.
It is not that Rutan wants to turn the craft into a "hangar queen" - at least not yet.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | 'No experiments' for SpaceShipOne
Analysts are looking to the US and Canada for a winner - with Burt Rutan clearly in the lead.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Space future: Race for the X-Prize
The aerospace giants felt it was impossible, but Burt Rutan flew into space.
Mr Rutan's efforts have been funded by Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft.
Moreover, the business plan that he and his partner Burt Rutan are working on sounds perfectly, er, down to earth.
Legendary aeronautical and spacecraft designer Burt Rutan has a somewhat optimistic view.
SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, who is beginning work on Virgin's space fleet, has promised to ride along with Branson on the first flight.
Mr Rutan is the brain behind SpaceShipOne, which in June became the first privately funded spaceship, reaching the edge of space on a sub-orbital hop.
The clever thing about Mr Rutan's aircraft is that it can tumble back into the atmosphere and glide down to land without any fancy computerised guidance.
Virgin Chief Executive Richard Branson is using his fame, and money, to build a space tourism business using spacecraft to be built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites.
But he said Monday's accomplishment capped "years of grappling with engine problems" and trying to scale up the spacecraft from a smaller, earlier version built by Mr. Rutan.
It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan and his colleagues to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
FORBES: The John Galts of the Future Will Build Galt's Gulch in Space
"My gut tells me that the additional flying we may do on this airplane before it goes to the Air and Space Museum should be focused on developing the very best space tourism vehicle, " Rutan said.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | 'No experiments' for SpaceShipOne
If there is a boom coming, the fuse was lit by the 2004 flight of SpaceShipOne, a reusable space vehicle built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) co-founder Paul Allen .
Scaled Composites, founded by renowned aircraft designer Burt Rutan, historically has kept the timing of important test flights under wraps partly to prevent crowds from gathering at the Mojave airport, and partly to avoid putting undue pressure on project managers to launch or take off.
Two years later a craft by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and aerospace designer Burt Rutan made two trips into space in 14 days and captured the prize. (Anousheh Ansari later got her wish, a flight to the International Space Station, in 2006.) Diamandis was finally launched.
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