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SpaceShipTwo's Rocket Engine Did Not Cause Fatal Crash
astroengine writes It wasn't SpaceShipTwo's hybrid rocket motor — which was flying on Friday with a new type of fuel — that caused the fatal crash, the head of the accident investigation agency said late Sunday. The ship's fuel tanks and its engine were recovered intact, indicating there was no explosion. "They showed no signs of burn-through, no signs of being breached," Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation and Safety Board, told reporters at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. Instead, data and video relayed from the ship show its hallmark safety feature — a foldable tail section designed for easy re-entry into the atmosphere from space — was deployed early, causing the in-flight break-up.
Normally, the feather system wouldn't be unlocked until the rocket-powered spaceship is moving about Mach 1.4, or 1.4 times faster than the speed of sound.
Instead, the co-pilot moved the lever from locked to unlock when the spaceship was traveling at about Mach 1, Hart said.
Modern cars have a feature where you can't take the key out of the ignition if you forget to put the thing in park. This feature saves me from stupid about twice a year. Humans are error-prone - there's a whole field, poka yoke dedicated to preventing these sorts of errors.
Test pilots are the best of the best. If one of them can make a catastrophic mistake then so can any commercial pilot.
Now, they may have figured that that sort of safety gear was "for later" and test craft are often bare-bones, and test pilots are often relied on to not make those kinds of mistakes. Assuming the premise here, we might see more automation early in the design process going forward. Virgin might be able to survive a year-long investigation but that kind of delay is an ongoing liability. It may turn out to be faster and cheaper in the long run to add in those costs up front, if delays are calculated into the cost.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The tail is supposed to be deployed during rentey at an altitude where the air is thin. So even though you are going faster the air is thin so the loads are less.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
This factor, not mere ideology or efficiency of free markets, is the reason we need to privatize risky technologies. The problem with a government effort is not that it is marginally less 'efficient' than a private one, but that in a Luddite-dominated culture a government effort, unless we can make it military and secret, will be doomed by its inevitable first accident. The Challenger crash caused a two-year delay of NASA's most advanced manned system, and the Columbia crash killed it for good.
Nope - under ICAO, for air crashes, preliminary report is supposed to be within one month.
Plus, this was a test flight, and was probably instrumented to death - very likely they have full real time telemetry before they even need to go near recorders in the wreckage. Apparently they have cockpit video too - something the aviation industry has always resisted (at least the unions).
If Orrin Hatch had not used his power to keep the shuttle booster manufacturing in Utah then the crew of Columbia would be alive today.
Since Utah is nowhere near where the shuttle is launched they had to be made in pieces so they could be shipped across the country. A less safe design. The original design called for the boosters to be made completely in one piece. O ring seals can't fail when there aren't any O rings to begin with.
The crew of Columbia died because of pork barrel politics.