Scaled Composites (often abbreviated as Scaled) is an aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman that is located at the Mojave Spaceport, Mojave, California, United States. Prior to acquisition by Northrop Grumman, the company was founded to develop experimental aircraft, but now focuses on designing and developing concept craft and prototype fabrication processes for aircraft and other vehicles. It is known for unconventional designs, for its use of non-metal, composite materials, and for winning the Ansari X Prize with its experimental spacecraft SpaceShipOne.

Scaled Composites was established in 1982 and purchased by the Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1985, as a result of the collaboration on the Starship project. In 1988, Beech's parent company, Raytheon, sold Scaled back to Rutan, who then sold it to Wyman-Gordon. After Wyman-Gordon was acquired by Precision Castparts Corp., Rutan and ten investors re-acquired the company as Scaled Composites, LLC. Northrop Grumman, a major shareholder in the company with a 40% stake, said it would acquire the company outright on July 20, 2007. Both companies said Northrop Grumman's acquisition would not affect Scaled Composites' strategy or involve replacing Burt Rutan as senior manager. The acquisition by Northrop Grumman was completed on August 24, 2007. Rutan retired in April 2011.

Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He is famous for his design of the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period. He has five aircraft on display in the National Air and Space Museum: SpaceShipOne, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, Voyager, Quickie, and the VariEze.

Born in 1943 in Estacada, Oregon, 30 miles southeast of Portland, and raised in Dinuba, California, Rutan displayed an early interest in aircraft design. By the time he was eight years old he was designing and building model aircraft. His first solo flight piloting an airplane was in an Aeronca Champ in 1959. In 1965 he graduated third in his class from the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly-SLO) with a BS degree in aeronautical engineering.

Paul G. Comba is an Italian-American astronomer.

He was born in 1926 in Italy and went to the United States in 1946 at the age of 20 on a scholarship to Caltech from which he received a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1951. After graduation he taught at the University of Hawaii until 1960, when he joined IBM as a software developer. [1]

He specializes in asteroids and has 599 numbered discoveries as of June 2010. He is also known for Comba Multiplication, a multiplication scheme for computers based upon long multiplication on pencil and paper. [2] In 2003 he won the Leslie C. Peltier Award for his contribution to astronomy [3]. He runs Prescott Observatory.

He is the author of the Astronomical League's Asteroid Club Observing Guide [4], and a current member of the Prescott Astronomy Club.[5][6]