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Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Crashes
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.
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.
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
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.
Becoming a millionaire is easy. Just start with a few billion and create your own space company.
Well, the $20 million actually gets you into orbit.
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.
In flight, definitely. But sadly not the first fatality for commercial space flight, or for Virgin come to that, Scaled Composites had an explosion during a ground test that killed three people in 2007. That set back didn't halt development, and I hope this one doesn't either.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Burt Rutan, the designer of the Spaceship One and Two, has been a hero, perhaps the hero, of my life. A passionate, innovative aircraft designer; unbelievably aggressive in trying new things, pushing boundaries that nobody even knew existed.
His first plane design, the VariViggen was an astonishingly different design than anything out there before; designed while a student at Cal Poly and built in his garage. And it flew beautifully. I saw that plane, his later VariEze and LongEz flying in formation at the Oshkosh Fly-in in 1980.
He set up a shop at the Mojave Airport, called Rutan Aircraft Factory (RAF). In the middle of nowhere, nothing there but space to build new planes, and he built many. Each one more exotic than the last. His Boomerang, his last personal plane, is so far from the standard boring airplane designs that most people wouldn't believe it could fly; but it does fly, efficiently, safely, and every apparently crazy design idea has absolutely solid engineering and aerodynamic backing.
I took my 14-year-old daughter to see the first flight into space of Spaceship One in 2004. Burt's long-time co-worker and chief test pilot, Mike Melville, flew it that day. As it was climbing to space, it started to spin, pretty fast (about 60 rpm.) Melville said that he was scared for a second, but then decided to wait until he was "in the safety of space" to arrest the spin. A test pilot, flying an experimental winged spaceship, who has never flown to space before, in a plane spinning at Mach 3, decides in a second to wait until he was in the safety of space. And of course, it worked out; he was able to use the reaction control system to arrest the spin; took out some candy to float around the cockpit, took some photos out the windows, and enjoyed the five minutes of weightlessness. Just one of a thousand, maybe ten thousand adventures in Burt's long career.
I've wondered my whole life about how Burt responds when people die flying planes of his design. In 1983, while at Oshkosh, a VariEze crashed approaching the airport (it looks as if the linkage between the control stick and the elevator failed.) Burt, up on stage, described his trip out to the crash site. As professional as he could be, but I felt it must have been tearing him up inside. He gave the gift of flight to thousands of enthusiasts, but those great planes took the lives of some of those people. How do you reconcile that? I'm not sure I could have, or can today.
Burt got out of the homebuilt airplane business after being sued too many times by the survivors of crashes. In the last suit, the guy built the plane incredibly wrong, instead of using the 10 layers of fiberglass to attack the fins to the wing, he just glued them on. Astonishingly, it held up for years, but finally broke during a low-high-speed pass. Burt won all the lawsuits, but it was clear that he would spend years defending himself instead of doing what he loved, so he closed the shop.
Burt retired a few years ago, and lives up in Idaho instead of Mojave. Sadly, for all the innovation he created over the years, there were no commercial successes. This looked like it might be the one, but it's never going to happen.
This is not the first death in the program; sadly. While testing a previous engine about 5 years ago, the nitrous oxide detonated, killing three of his engineers. I mourned for them, and for the pilot today. My joy over my whole adult life in seeing the achievements of Rutan and his team are about evenly matched by the heartache I feel for them today. They haven't announced the name of the pilot who died today, but may he rest in peace.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
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.
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.
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.
The benefits of every technical achievement went to the rich people first. From the toilet, to electric lighting, the automobile, the iPhone, etc. Every one.
Even military advances. Thanks God that it turned out, starting in the 1600-1700s that private enterprise - working independently of the aristocracies - led to wealth generation outside of the political structure. This gave societies as a whole the power to increasingly influence governments, leading to popular revolutions in America and France, and the neutering of royal power in England.
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)
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.