Unpack your bags we're not going to space: Virgin SpaceShipTwo Crashed - 1 Dead

[v2kai]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/31/us/spaceshiptwo-incident/


(CNN) -- [Breaking news update posted at 3:05 p.m. ET] One person died and another was seriously injured as a result of Friday's incident involving Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, California Highway Patrol Officer Jesse Borne said. [Breaking news update posted at 2:50 p.m. ET] A "serious anomaly" resulted in the "loss" of SpaceShipTwo during a test flight Friday, and the status of the pilots isn't known, Virgin Galactic said on Twitter. "We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident," the company said on Twitter. [Previous story posted at 2:42 p.m. ET] Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo experienced "an in-flight anomaly" during a test flight Friday, the company said on Twitter. Details about the anomaly weren't immediately released. Virgin Galactic has planned for years to sell trips in which SpaceShipTwo transports passengers about 62 miles above Earth -- the beginning of outer space -- and let them experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to ground. Friday's test flight began in Mojave, California, the company said. It's the second incident in a week involving the commercial space industry. On Tuesday, an unmanned Antares rocket exploded just after takeoff off the coast of Virginia. Controllers deliberately destroyed the craft after it became apparent there was a problem, a spokesman for Orbital Sciences Corporation said Thursday.

RIP to the deceased test pilot. Hope this doesnt give everyone cold feet and hinder the big picture of private space flight.

[flipstah]

I'm sure early flying had its issues as well.

[spikerS]

I hope this impacts it just enough to make it affordable for me to do the trip. LOL

[revelations]

Not the first death involving the Scaled Composites program, and certainly wont be the last.

Anytime you play with new technology engines (they were testing a new polymer-blend rocket ), things are bound to go wrong.

What bothers me is that the ejection/evacuation system/method didnt work out for the test crew.

[ZenOps]

Didn't expect much.

Even NASA was 1:23 on manned missions being catastrophic failures.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Interesting to see where the investigation leads, there were definite rumblings about Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic having problems with the hybrid engines - underpowered and with such bad oscillations that a full-length burn would potentially tear the ship apart. The crash was caused by a failure of the new "stabilized" engine on its maiden flight, perhaps maybe more on-ground testing was needed since they blew one up and killed three people a few years ago. Nitrous oxide can be nasty stuff when it goes wrong.

[Robin Goodfellow]

Originally posted by BerserkerCatSplat
Nitrous oxide can be nasty stuff when it goes wrong.

Certainly nothing to laugh about.

[themack89]

At least they can still call the next ship the Virgin, because technically it hasn't penetrated into space yet.

[revelations]

Originally posted by Robin Goodfellow


Certainly nothing to laugh about.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--K9Z55JQx0s/Tdv8TGGu6qI/AAAAAAAABcM/gJPYUe-j36M/s1600/i-get-it-crop.png

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by revelations
Not the first death involving the Scaled Composites program, and certainly wont be the last.

Anytime you play with new technology engines (they were testing a new polymer-blend rocket ), things are bound to go wrong.

What bothers me is that the ejection/evacuation system/method didnt work out for the test crew.

On just about every Air Craft Investigation episode, someone says, "Each accident teaches us how to prevent this type of accident from happening again".

Except what Rev just said.