Spaceship Builder, Burt Ruran: Post Surgery Medical Update

Legendary aerospace designer, Burt Rutan, is back in high-gear after suffering months with an energy-draining heart ailment.

In a February 22 email message to reporters, Rutan reported that he underwent open-heart surgery earlier this month to take care of the problem: constrictive pericardium.

Following his February 7 operation at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Rutan said that he’s feeling better every day, although complete recovery will take some three more months.

In response to my email query regarding his medical status, Rutan praised the UCLA doctors. “My problem is often missed since it is rare and it is not easily discerned on x-ray, sonogram, angiogram, or even CAT Scan. I owe my life to a real sharp doctor who figured it out,” he told me.

Burt Rutan, space travel technologist. Credit: Virgin Galactic

Cause of Rutan’s medical problem had remained a mystery for five months. Once diagnosed, he underwent open heart surgery two days later.

“My heart is fine…it just now has room to do its pumping. The problem will not reoccur since the bad hardened sack was removed,” Rutan explained.

Rutan said he’s doing great post-surgery, gaining strength each day.

As leader of his Scaled Composites team in Mojave, California, Rutan and his fellow builders are deep in work on building the huge White Knight Two drop plane, as well as SpaceShipTwo, the customer-carrying suborbital spaceliner for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

“It is great to have Burt back beginning to fire on all cylinders again after what has been a very tough period for the whole Scaled family…and a very worrying time for all of Burt’s own family as well,” added Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic.

“As was evident in New York, when we launched the final design of White Knight and SpaceShipTwo, Burt has a great engineering team at Scaled Composites…but they have missed his personal touch and good humor on the shop floor on a day to day basis recently,” Whitehorn told me. “The knowledge that he is on the mend is another great start to the “Year of the Spaceship” in Mojave where work is on track to commence flight testing of White Knight Two this summer,” he said.