Burt Rutan is designer for over 40 planes and for some rockets. He is the main designer for SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo, WhiteKnightOne and WhiteKnightTwo. They are not his first space vehicles. Rutan designed X-38, which was to be the crew return vehicle for the International Space Station. It flew in 1999, but the whole project was cancelled because of NASA's budget cuts in 2002.

As a designer he is a legend. One can compare Rutan to Sergei Korolev, who sent Gagarin to orbit and to von Braun, who sent men to the Moon with Apollo -rocket.

The book is a tight description of all the planes Rutan has desgined. The most intersting part part for me was of course SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo.

More info:

Burt Rutan's Race to Space

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_X-38

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolyov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun