Scaled Composites is no longer as we know it… Or is it? Will Burt Rutan stay with the company he founded and continue to be it’s matriarch and lead imagineer??? Or not?

These are all questions I have since reading today that Northrop Grumman bought the remainder of what it didn’t already own in Scaled Composites. Ever since Scaled entered the space race and victoriously presented actual space travel as a viable possibility for anyone with $200,000 in hand (slightly down from $20 million the Russians were charging), it became readily apparent that the Rutan company and it’s value also sky-rocketed into space, right along side SpaceShip One.

Enter Northrop-Grumman. The defense contractor already owned 40% of Scaled prior to this latest deal. It realized the full potential for the global impact that Scaled had created with it’s space program- They did it. They actually did it. And by God a sixty-something insurance salesman by the name of Mike Melvill was a the controls even.

Anyone could have seen the value in Scaled; But I don’t think everyone could have thought that Burt would have sold, at least not now. He’s sold in the past, but only to reacquire the business. After all, it was his baby… It is his baby.

So will Rutan stay around now that Northrop is the new 100% owner? My guess is most certainly. For Burt Rutan, this deal most likely still allows him to participate in what he loves the most while allowing him to ease into semi-retirement.

Sounds like a good deal to me.
~Capt’n Chris

Filed under: Editorials | |