RATHDRUM - Maverick aviation engineer Burt Rutan believes students at the new North Idaho STEM Charter Academy are worthy of a photo op.

Rutan, who designed the Voyager - which in 1986 became the first airplane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling - took photos of the kids during the school's grand opening on Tuesday because he believes a few of them will be famous some day.

"You don't know who it is yet - it may be several of you and not just one - but someone here will invent a significant breakthrough for mankind and be world famous," Rutan told 265 students and their parents at the school in Rathdrum.

Quite an endorsement from a man who has launched a lot in his own right.

Five of Rutan's planes hang in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, includingthe Voyager and SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first private rocket plane ever to put a man into space.

His designs propelled him onto magazine covers and "60 Minutes."

Rutan, 69, retired last year and recently moved to North Idaho from the small desert town of Majave, Calif.

Rutan, sporting his trademark Elvis-style sideburns, said America used to boast more people with doctorate degrees than any other country.

"Everybody was so excited about science," he said.

Today, America is No. 37.

"That's not very good," he said.

But there's hope, Rutan said. And he believes he saw it at the public K-8 STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) school Tuesday.

"I am encouraged with what I see here," he said.

Rutan's dad was a dentist, but Burt knew early on he didn't want to follow in that path.

"When I was a kid, I played with model airplanes," he said.

When he was 12 in 1955, he remembers watching on black-and-white TV about aspirations to reach Mars.

He was intrigued by aviation dreams and he did his part to bring some to reality.

He has been described by Newsweek as "the man responsible for more innovations in modern aviation than any living engineer."

Rutan said students today, aided by multiple school options and more flexibility for teachers, can do the same.

Rutan, who founded the design and manufacturing firm Scaled Composites in 1982, came up with nearly 400 individual concepts - of which 45 have flown.

Eighth-grader Cara Williams was among the students who lined up after the assembly to ask Rutan questions and get his autograph.

"I never thought that I'd meet such a really smart inventor," she said. "I was never into airplanes before, but now I'm more into them."