Presentation: AMA w/ Julian Guthrie & Dan Kreigh

Julian Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who spent twenty years at the San Francisco Chronicle and has been published by The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Huffington Post, and others. She is the author of the New York Times best-seller, How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight, with a foreword by Richard Branson and an afterword by Stephen Hawking. The book, just out in paperback, tells the story of Peter Diamandis and his dream of creating a private path to space, the launch of the XPRIZE, and the teams that joined in the hunt to try to make history and launch an industry. The WSJ wrote of the book, “If you admire those who aim really high, How to Make a Spaceship belongs on your bookshelf. [It] offers a rousing anthem to the urge to explore.” How to Make A Spaceship has been optioned for television, and will be produced by Danny Strong and Fox.

Dan Kreigh was the lead structural analyst for SpaceShipOne. Dan made sure that the SpaceShipOne structure was strong enough to withstand expected flight, pressure and landing loads yet light enough to make it to space. SpaceShipOne won the $10million Ansari X-prize for being the first privately built manned reusable spaceship to fly to space twice in two weeks. SpaceShipOne was designed by legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan. Scaled Composites, that built SpaceShipOne, was founded by Burt Rutan in 1982. Dan Kreigh has been working with Scaled Composites for almost 30 years. Dan has probably structurally analysed more different types of FLYING aircraft (14+) than any other analyst due to Scaled Composites' amazing record of producing one new type of flying aircraft every year on average. One of Dan's most recent structures is the cabin for the world's largest wingspan (385') airplane, "Stratolaunch" being presently finished in Mojave, CA.

Dan also owns and flies a Burt Rutan designed Long-EZ home built airplane. Dan is an avid model airplane enthusiast having designed and sold over 8,000 kits of the popular IFO park flyer design. Dan's current project is his own-design, two-place, 180 mph, low cost, "flying car" or "roadable airplane" that can DRIVE to the store, FIT inside an average one car garage (16.5' long) and can fly over 1,000 miles nonstop.