While I may have seemed callus with the rocket issues earlier, that was only because noone was on them. This is much more serious, and I certainly hope the pilots ejected safely.
Virgin's SpaceShipTwo crashes in Mojave Desert during test flight
Richard Branson's commercial space company Virgin Galactic suffered a serious setback on Friday when a test flight of its SpaceShipTwo aircraft crashed during the testing of its rocket motor. SpaceShipTwo crash This doesn't look good "Virgin Galactic’s partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of …
COMMENTS
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Friday 31st October 2014 20:09 GMT Rabbit80
Sad day :(
However - without this kind of testing and pushing the boundaries of what is possible we would never hope to leave the earth. Kudos to the pilots and Virgin for their bravery and we can only hope that this test results in safer space travel in years to come.
To make mistakes is part of the learning process - it is essential that Virgin are open about what went wrong so everybody else can learn and not make the same mistake.
If Virgin want test pilots, I would volunteer in a heartbeat - as I am sure many others would.. Risk like this is worth it for the rest of the human race. A tragedy, but worth it in my opinion. I know that sounds callus, but look at the early pioneers of flight, or the formula one drivers of yesteryear - without them pushing the boundaries of technology we would be decades behind. Natural disasters wipe out more every year than all technological experiments combined.
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Friday 31st October 2014 20:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Well, unfortunately, testing new craft does involve risk.
My thoughts are with the family of the dead pilot.
You can criticize Branson's space venture all you want as a diversion for the bored rich, but the fact is that the initial steps to offering large-scale access to earth orbit are going to be so expensive that only the rich or national space programs can afford it. I choose to believe that someday that will change.
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Friday 31st October 2014 21:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Well, unfortunately, testing new craft does involve risk.
Dream on son. Remember CONCORDE? That Tax Payer funded project that was supposed to bring SUPERSONIC travel to the masses, well it didn't pan out like that did it son?
If you want a glimpse in to future that Sir Richard Branson and his like are taking you to, then watch Elysium!
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Friday 31st October 2014 23:57 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: Well, unfortunately, testing new craft does involve risk.
If you want a glimpse in to future that Sir Richard Branson and his like are taking you to, then watch Elysium!
Anyone who thinks Elysium is some True Message Against Rampant Capitalism has any lesson beyond Hollywood retardation and Matt Damon's pseudo-social arsehattery should have his head examined pronto.
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Friday 31st October 2014 21:53 GMT Chris G
Re: Well, unfortunately, testing new craft does involve risk.
Fortunately, Branson has in the past been willing to risk his own life pushing envelopes. Now he is risking his own and investors money to develop something that hopefully will have a recognisable ROI within his lifetime by selling joyrides into near space to the wealthy , if not then he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he has contributed to humanities efforts to to go further in the universe.
If enough wealthy people go it will help to make space even more commonplace while on each and every trip adding a little to the knowledge and experience necessary to go out into the solar system and beyond.
I am sure he will feel the loss of one pilot and the injury of the other very strongly.
I wish the survivor and the families of the pilots all the best.
Pioneers often pay the ultimate price for what they do but they leave behind them a legacy for all of us.
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Friday 31st October 2014 20:33 GMT hplasm
A sad day.
Following on from the loss of Antares, the very sad loss of a test pilot for Virgin.
My thoughts are with his family, the survivor and his kin, and with Mr Branson, and his staff who I know will feel this deeply.
Honour goes to those who put themselves forward to see what lies over the horizon.
The list of the brave has sadly gained another name on the Wall of remembrance.
Ad astra per ardua.
No-one ever said it would be easy. Sometimes it can be very hard indeed.
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Friday 31st October 2014 20:47 GMT Simon Ball
"In May, the design of the rocket was changed and successful test burns of a new thermoplastic polyamide fuel were completed"
Test BURNS? Would it be extremely cynical of me to ask just how many UNMANNED test FLIGHTS of this new propellant formulation were conducted before this horrible accident?
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Friday 31st October 2014 21:29 GMT imanidiot
Re: Black Box
Most likely it was fitted with about a gazillion data loggers. They were conducting test flights on the new engine after all.
My heartfelt condolances to the family of the deceased pilot and best wishes to the pilot and his family who is still alive. Lets hope he pulls through swiftly.
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Saturday 1st November 2014 13:06 GMT Richard 12
Re: Black Box
'Cos it's a test flight.
Test flights are filled to the gunnels with data recorders measuring and recording (and often transmitting in real-time) anything and everything that can be reasonably measured. They're more fragile (and a heck of a lot more expensive) than black boxes, but the storage media should survive.
They aren't going to speculate on the causes until they've recovered as much of it as possible and had time to analyse what happened.
Equally, there won't be any more test flights until they've done that and figured out how to reduce the probability of it happening again.
A "black box" records absolutely nothing in comparison.
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Sunday 2nd November 2014 15:13 GMT MrT
Re: Black Box
So much data that this is why they're saying it'll take a year to fully investigate.
There are also three cameras on WhiteKnight and IIRC 6 on SS2, including one looking across from the port tailfin to the rocket motor. Hopefully all the devices on SS2 that record and store in situ can be recovered.
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Friday 31st October 2014 21:36 GMT phil dude
still risky...
No matter the upbeat blanket we get from the media about how straightforward these activities are, using any amount of explosive, toxic or unstable materials with very complex machinery, always has the chance of disaster.
Condolences to the family of the pilot who perished, and best wishes for a recovery for the one that survived.
P.
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Friday 31st October 2014 21:58 GMT Martin-73
Re: still risky...
Agreed, the media tend not to cover things like this other than in 'and another one was successfully launched, and now, a dancing dog'; thus the public get convinced this space thing is simple.
Antares and now this even more unfortunate incident remind us that it's not plain sailing, not by a long chalk. As others have said, say what you like about Virgin, at least they're pushing the envelope. Most of our advances are due in large part to people like the two pilots who are prepared to take risks that the majority would shun, I am grateful to them.
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Saturday 1st November 2014 09:33 GMT Chris G
Re: A different perspective
A quite well written article right up to "We go when there’s something there." That was the point where the writer shows his lack of perspective and real thought about pioneers.
Often they (pioneers) go because they don't know what is there but it could be useful, interesting,amazing or whatever. Pioneering is looking for something new, not always something profitable or necessarily safe.
What Branson is doing may be for the rich initially but it will help to make space travel more common place and thus eventually cheaper; cheaper means more often and more often means the technology becomes more reliable and refined.
I remember far enough back to when anyone 'rich ' enough to travel in a jet was not so common place. Where do you think the phrase 'Jet set' comes from ?
Now Joe Bloggs can travel on a jet to his annual puke fest for less than a day's wages but in the early days it was almost comparable to renting you own jet now ( 12 seater about €2500/hr).
I think Branson can be a bit of a pratt sometimes but VG is a vision that will contribute to the race moving forward.
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Saturday 1st November 2014 20:47 GMT Malmesbury
A deeply flawed project
The reason for the massive delays for this project were issues with the hybrid rocket motors.
Read http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/10/30/apollo-ansari-hobbling-effects-giant-leaps/
This was published *before* the accident by a guy who's followed this program for years.
The short version - the engine ran very, very rough. Also inefficiently - to the point there were doubts about getting to space.
They'd just changed to a nylon based fuel in the hopes of an improvement. Also added were systems to inject helium and methane to control the burn.
I believe that as part of the investment deal with Aabar Investments (Abu Dabi's government investment fund) they had to demonstrate a flight to space before the end of 2014. Or return a big chunk of money.
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Monday 3rd November 2014 12:18 GMT John Jennings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Virgin_Galactic_crash
Current thinking is that the feathering system is at fault. The idea of the engine burning rough is not discounted (perhaps the engine cut out, feathering deployed, and engine spontaneously restarted??)
I doubt if the feathered wings would withstand thrust when the engine fires....
Aparently the engine was recovered intact - might tell something.
Dunno if the pilot must deploy feathering or its automatic?
Probably wont know for sure for some time...