Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Crashes

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Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Crashes

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 31, 2014 @07:10AM from the keep-trying dept.

Fallen Kell writes: Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has crashed. "'During the test. the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle,' the company said in a statement. "The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely. Our first concern is the status of the pilots, which is unknown at this time.'"" ABC says one person is dead, and another injured. This was the craft's fourth powered test flight, and its first since January.

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Not a good week... by Enigma2175 · 2014-10-31 07:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Wow, with the Orbital Sciences launch failure and now this, it is really turning into a bad week for privately funded spaceflight.

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Enigma
1. Re:Not a good week... by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-10-31 07:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Sadness for the casualties and their families.
  
  We can't forget that space flight is a challenging, dangerous, risky affair for private industry as well as governments. It will be interesting to see how the private side deals with these setbacks.
2. Re:Not a good week... by PsychoSlashDot · 2014-10-31 07:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This sounds callous, but progress is not without required risk. I hope Virgin Galactic continues the good work of private spaceflight that will be essential to continued advances in space exploration.
  Not callous at all. But it sure as hell refutes the attacks on NASA that were saying "the private sector will do space flight cheaper and safer". Meh. This stuff is inherently dangerous, and isn't yet routine, so stuff will go wrong.
  
  Condolences and thanks to the family and friends of the crew. Your loss was in the interest of enriching us all.
  
  --
  "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
3. Re:Not a good week... by CauseBy · 2014-10-31 07:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That's right. People risk their lives to do adventures like this because it's worth it. Some of them become martyrs for the knowledge needed to achieve the goal. It's still sad and we are still right to ask if we could have done better, and how we can do better now.
4. Re:Not a good week... by Goetterdaemmerung · 2014-10-31 07:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  No offense, but "the goal" was achieved decades ago. These people died for the profit of shareholders, not some "goal" of space flight which has been going on for half a century.
  The goal of commercial manned spaceflight was already achieved decades ago? Odd. I seem to have missed it.
5. Re:Not a good week... by MightyMartian · 2014-10-31 07:44 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Cheap access to space is a pretty damned worthy goal, regardless of profit.
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
6. Re:Not a good week... by Charliemopps · 2014-10-31 07:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The goal was "privately funded spaceflight" so that eventually, everyone could go into space instead of just fighter pilots.
  And I do take offense to your statement... The men that died building the empire state building were in fact heroes. I'm sure their loved ones would take issue with your opinion. They were dedicated steel workers that risked everything because they had pride in their work and knew they could get it done. They built one of the greatest buildings ever designed, it's still stands today because of their unquestionable skill. They knew exactly what the risks were when they started that Job. Even today construction workers risk their lives to build masterpieces. Any of them could easilly get a job building ranch style houses in the Midwest for about the same pay, yet they chose no to.
  Those of us sitting in chairs with our lumbar support and wrist protecting keyboard trays have no business declaring anything about the goals and risk of men that do real work for a living.
7. Re:Not a good week... by swillden · 2014-10-31 07:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Some of them become martyrs for the knowledge needed to achieve the goal.
  No offense, but "the goal" was achieved decades ago.
  Nonsense. The goal of low-cost sub-orbital manned flights with completely reusable spacecraft has not been achieved. The fact that sub-orbital space flight was achieved decades ago, at massive expense and with single-use craft (or craft that have to be overhauled after every flight), isn't relevant. Achieving regular manned commercial space travel is also worthwhile, and also unachieved. What Virgin Galactic is trying to do is new, and worthwhile, in several ways. And even if all of the above had been done, that still wouldn't make it useless to design and test new spacecraft designs... and that's still an inherently dangerous process. Test pilots still die from time to time in aircraft, and we've been doing that for a half century longer yet.
  I realize that you just wanted a chance to poke at your favorite strawman, but that just increases the ridiculousness of your statement.
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
8. Re:Not a good week... by Goetterdaemmerung · 2014-10-31 08:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I am glad not everyone shares your viewpoint. This is an entire industry still in its infancy. Using a strategy like selling rich people seats so they can be the first ones up there is perfectly satisfactory to get the technology developed and bring costs down an open it up to a wider audience. It's not a zero sum game.
9. Re:Not a good week... by SillyHamster · 2014-10-31 08:07 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Commercial manned spaceflights add nothing here. The ultimate goal being profit for shareholders and find a new way to waste money for the wealthier in exchange of something nobody else can buy, do. But at the end, it does not contribute anything to make this planet better.
  
  Do those space ship designs look anything like what was previously used? Why is exploring new spaceship designs and launch mechanisms useless?
  When you attack "profits", realize that it is profits that drove the creation of the computers and networks that you're typing this on, right? It is hypocritical for you to enjoy the benefits while disdaining the means.
  
  No, I am not ready to die for my neighbor to live in space or elsewhere.
  No one asked you to. On the other hand, how hard is to not shit on other people's achievements?
10. Re:Not a good week... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-31 08:08 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Really? Because my father is currently employed by the State of New Mexico to help get Spaceport America ready. So, it's contributing to jobs, for one thing. For another, it is absolutely ESSENTIAL for humanity to expand beyond Earth if we are to survive AS A SPECIES. If you don't want to go into space, fine...fortunately for the rest of us, who understand what commercial space flight means for humanity, you get no say in any of this.
11. Re:Not a good week... by dbrueck · 2014-10-31 08:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Nah, I think the goal can be a bit broader than just that.
  The larger goal is getting people and cargo to and from space cheaply, reliably, and downright commonplace. Getting the private sector involved is almost certainly a key to making that happen.
  In the short term it might have a lot to do with low-orbit tourism and profits and losses, but that's ok. That's part of what it takes to get the money spent, that's part of what will lead to making it economically feasible, it's what will (hopefully) lead to greater interest by the public, and a lot of the technology and discoveries that make it all work well will move things forward towards the big picture goal.
  Taking the reference to the Empire State Building: you can look at the construction of that building purely in terms of the economics and the time period or whatever. But regardless of whatever motives caused it to be built, it pushed the envelope of large scale construction and now, nearly a century later, a new building of that size is hardly noteworthy because now there are structures over twice as tall. Similarly, I hope companies like Virgin Galactic do the same thing for the space travel industry, regardless of what their publicly stated goals are.
  Also, I'm betting that many (most?) of the people involved aren't putting their lives on the line just because of a paycheck, but because they really want to advance the space travel industry.
12. Re:Not a good week... by brainboyz · 2014-10-31 08:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How do you expect to ever get there if rich people aren't funding it first? Like it or not, rich people funding novelties leads to mass production and streamlining of processes which in turn make everything cheaper for us little guys. On top of that, it's THEIR money. Why should they give a damn about your opinion on how they spend it?
13. Re:Not a good week... by GameboyRMH · 2014-10-31 08:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  By the way, asshole, the only way to achieve real cheap space flight is to have commercial space flight, and just like anything that is done before it becomes the thing that everybody can afford, the first years of it are going to be expensive and only affordable by the wealthiest individuals. Just like cars used to be.
  Some things will only be cheap when energy is absurdly cheap, due to the amount of energy that is required. Supersonic flight, space flight, running large wind tunnels, heated pools...those kinds of things.
  Cars went almost directly from proofs-of-concept puttering around to mass affordability in less than two decades. Although the one-off concepts had been driving around for roughly a century before the first production vehicles were made.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
14. Re:Not a good week... by websitebroke · 2014-10-31 08:39 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I was with you until you suggested suicide. Please don't ever suggest to anybody that they kill themselves, particularly as ammo in an argument. It's petty.
15. Re:Not a good week... by halivar · 2014-10-31 08:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  There was a time when only the rich flew and the rest of us schmucks were still sailing in boats. Your assertion is inconsistent with history.
16. Re:Not a good week... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-31 08:43 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  We will not expand beyond earth in any meaningful fashion without a fundamental revolution in our understanding of the physics required to travel interstellar distances. It's really that simple.
  "But the space station!" - nope, sorry. Never anything more than a scientific / research outpost.
  "But the moon!" - lol no. Worse than Mars, still dead if our sun goes.
  "But Mars!" - nope, sorry. That will never be anything more than a small colony requiring constant resupply from Earth. Our Sun goes, Mars goes too. Species wiped out.
  "But generational starships"- nope, sorry. We can't build a Buick where the fucking bumper doesn't fall off in 3 years... we are sure as SHIT not building a spaceship that will last the literally tens of thousands of years required to travel to our nearest neighbors with orbiting planets while supporting huge amounts of life on board. Let alone the fact that there's no guarantee the planets you find on the other end of that 30,000 year flight will be habitable in any appreciable way.
  Unless and until we have "Faster Than Light" travel, we are NOT going to be traveling interstellar (or intergalactic) distances with manned flights. It really is that simple, friend.
  Commercial space flight does NOTHING to probe those fundamental physical boundaries. Commercial space flight is nothing more than APPLIED SCIENCE. We know enough to send people up, and bring them back down again now. We understand how it works - commercial space flight is now just tinkering with the formula trying to make it cheaper for everybody to have a thrill ride - and with our current understanding of the universe, that's literally all that orbital spaceflight will get us. Pour that money into theoretical physics if you want to eventually get humanity off this rock as a hedge against extinction. Any other expenditure is foolish.
17. Re:Not a good week... by war4peace · 2014-10-31 08:59 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Or horse carriages, or trains, or cars, radios, TVs, mobile phones, computers... pretty much anything that was "brand new tech" at some point in the past.
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
18. Re:Not a good week... by blue9steel · 2014-10-31 09:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Travel in suborbital space for the wealthiers accomplish nothing.
  By itself no, but orbital solar power stations, asteroid mining and zero gee manufacturing would accomplish things and this helps us move in that direction.
19. Re:Not a good week... by SillyHamster · 2014-10-31 09:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I do not "attack" profits. I am just stating what this whole thing is about. Profits can also be made from doing actually useful things. Travel in suborbital space for the wealthiers accomplish nothing.
  You disdained this business seeking profit by building new spaceships. As opposed to those profit-seeking businesses who sell food, or consumer tech, or cars?
  Since you're have set yourself up as a judge that things need to be about making the planet better - what have you done to make this planet better? Slashdot posts don't count.
  
  BTW, what achievements are you talking about? We have already send people to the Moon and we are routinely sending people in low orbit of the Earth. There is nothing to see here.
  I guess you're not an engineer. Even a failed prototype is an achievement. Do you think successes are picked off trees or something? What do you think successful achievements are built upon? The lessons from the failures.
  The test pilots were testing a new type of space vehicle. There was an immense amount of work going into a challenging problem. You are familiar with the term, "it's not rocket science", yes? They are tackling rocket science.
  Please do elaborate on how you're part of the "we" who sent people to the moon or who send people into low orbit.
20. Re:Not a good week... by Jartan · 2014-10-31 09:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What nonsense. Someone somewhere is designing a leafblower right now and learned something that leads to cheaper access to space. Some scientist studying bug locomotion learned something that leads to cheaper access to space.
  That is how progress works. Technological "breakthroughs" are always a culmination of extremely small leaps.
21. Re:Not a good week... by CaptainDork · 2014-10-31 09:36 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
  Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
22. Re:Not a good week... by tnk1 · 2014-10-31 10:59 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That's right. They know the risks, they know what has happened to people before, and what could happen to test pilots in the future.
  The benefit is that they get to do things no one else has ever done before and sometimes they even get a lot of credit for it while they live. Sometimes they don't get credit, and sometimes they end up dead.
  If only we all could meet our inevitable end in the pursuit of something worthwhile.
23. Re:Not a good week... by tnk1 · 2014-10-31 11:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't see your point. Money is money. Do you think that Branson wants to only fly around rich people forever? His choices to get the funding from point A to point B are rich people, getting a government grant, or starting up a Kickstarter for a couple billion dollars. Or all of them put together. It's expensive. You take what you can get.
  The point is to make space something that isn't going to get cancelled the next time the Congressman from Kansas (or wherever) wants to get a corn subsidy. A corn subsidy that no one needs, but makes him look good to his district.
  The problem with the national programs is that there is no motive to take the next steps. They can only seem to get up the gumption to really make it matter when they need to do some old fashioned dick waving. That's why the US and USSR did it, and that is why China and India are doing it.
  Commercialization isn't the only way of doing it, but commercialization is a method that does work for other products and services. It sure beats having to have a war (or a Cold War) to make some progress.
24. Re:Not a good week... by tnk1 · 2014-10-31 11:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The Wright Brothers built a plane, glider really, that would have no possible application today other than recreation.
  As you surmised, it is unlikely that something like this space plane will scale out for mass usage of space flight, but its a necessary start.
  Yes, we've been to the Moon courtesy of the taxpayer. And how long has it been since anyone has been back? The US is not in such bad shape that we couldn't afford to go back. The government just sees no benefit *to them* in doing so. The people themselves have other concerns. Been there, done that.
  If some rich people have the ability to fund a vision beyond what is right in front of them, then thank goodness for rich people. Some rich people, anyway. At least they are using their money for something more useful than snorting cocaine, starting wars, and fixing elections.
25. Re:Not a good week... by schnell · 2014-10-31 12:31 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Did you notice that we got to space, as in actually into orbit and beyond already? As in several nations, separately with separate independent programs? Without rich people funding it?
  Er, rich people did fund it, although it was in the form of taxes. Everyone else in the US and Soviet Union funded it too, because those governments shoveled nontrivial portions of their GDPs into the effort at the expense of using that money for things like reducing poverty, improving education or curing diseases.
  Today, you have private companies spending their money on this effort instead, to the potential detriment of basically nobody but their own shareholders who voluntarily chose to take a risk on that investment. How can that possibly be a bad thing?
  You know, the commercial aviation industry post-WWII was seen as nothing but a luxury for the "one percenters" of that day. Over time you evolved a deregulated airline market in the US that provided flight options for el cheapo travelers, first-class jet-setters and everyone in between. Maybe space flight will get there too but it doesn't do so without that first phase of being a toy for those entitled rich snobs who "just don't have the patience to take the train like the rest of us."
  
  --
  "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
26. Re:Not a good week... by khallow · 2014-10-31 15:01 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Absent several technological breakthroughs that are each tantamount to magic
  The SpaceShipTwo design already is cheap access to space for researchers who want to run experiments above 100 km. And for the thrill ride. Don't need new technology development beyond what's already been done (except it sounds like they might need a more reliable rocket).
  
  I think you ought to learn more about what the market is for suborbital before telling us about all the magic that needs to be done.
  
  Sure, they'll need to greatly modify the design in order to get an orbital vehicle with viable thermal protection system for return to Earth. But so what? As I've noted before, Scaled Composites has demonstrated that they can design and build such things,
Huge setback by PvtVoid · 2014-10-31 07:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

As in the kind of setback that could put them out of business entirely. This isn't a cargo ship.
1. Re:Huge setback by FlyHelicopters · 2014-10-31 07:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Virgin is a wealthy company backed by a very wealthy man.
  This is a setback, but crashes happen.
  If everyone had given up on airplanes in the early days because of a few deaths, then we'd all be taking the train today.
2. Re:Huge setback by gstoddart · 2014-10-31 08:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Right, you've gotta break some eggs if you want to see the big return on investment.
  A few lives here and there aren't going to stop the quest for profits.
  In fairness, I would say the guys who are flying these things know damned well what the risk is, and would fight tooth and nail for the opportunity to do it.
  And I seriously doubt Branson would view any of these people as expendable assets.
  Because I suspect he wants to fly on this as much as anybody else does.
  It's sad, it sucks ... but nobody is just looking at this as a cost of doing business. A very real possibility, yes. But I very much doubt anybody treats it as anything except a really terrible loss.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Sad, regrettable and probably inevitable. by jratcliffe · 2014-10-31 07:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

People die every year climbing Everest, and yet every year, people climb Everest.
Re:That's a shame by itzly · 2014-10-31 07:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, the $20 million actually gets you into orbit.
Re:Using NASA's dictionary by gstoddart · 2014-10-31 07:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apparently, "anomaly" is a synonym for exploded into may tiny pieces.
Engineering and operating equipment at this level requires a certain level of being fairly clinical and detached about it, and not devolving into a screeching monkey while it's happening.
So "anomaly" being "outside of expected parameters", sure.
I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean that inwardly you're not going "oh, crap, no" .. but like first responders and medical people, while it's happening you need to keep it reined in.
I wish I could dredge up some examples, but I seem to remember seeing some things which some of the astronauts said in the middle of a crisis which made them sound like it was just a little thing, when the rest of us would all be screaming "we're all gonna die we're all gonna die".
I seem to recall one of them went through an explosion or a crash or something, and then joked about it being a bit of a rough ride or something. Even the other astronauts were all stunned by it, I just can't recall the specifics of it. Apparently he was back at his office the same day, and flying the next as if nothing happened.
Big Brass Ones are kind of required at this level.

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Thank an adventurer sometime by sjbe · 2014-10-31 07:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

Spaceflight is dangerous. I think the best quote ever was by Mary Shafer of NASA who said "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." These people clearly don't suffer that problem.
I thank the explorers who take these risks, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Without them the world would be a much smaller and worse place. It's hard to even imagine the courage it must take to cross an ocean to an unknown continent or to fly into space. People who do these things have my everlasting respect.
1. Re:Thank an adventurer sometime by DerekLyons · 2014-10-31 08:14 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I thank the explorers who take these risks, sometimes at the cost of their lives.
  Are you out of your friggin mind? No disrespect to them, but these guys weren't explorers. They were testing a commercial craft, no different conceptually from the guys Boeing hires to give an aircraft fresh off the assembly line a quick spin around the sky. They should be mourned, but for what they were - brave individuals doing a difficult job, not for something they weren't.