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Some Virgin Galactic Customers Demand Money Back
schwit1 (797399) writes News reports suggest that — following last week's SpaceShipTwo crash — more than thirty of the seven hundred people who placed deposits with Virgin Galactic to fly on SpaceshipTwo have pulled out, demanding their money back. "In response to the claim that more than 30 customers are considering their position in the aftermath of the crash, a spokesperson for Virgin Galactic admitted a number of people have asked for their money back. 'We can confirm that less than three per cent of people have requested refunds,' the spokesman said." This is not a surprise, nor should it be. A company can only survive a crisis like this by responding honestly, quickly, and directly. If Virgin Galactic does this, finding the cause of the crash and fixing it, they will likely hold onto most of their customers. If they don't, those remaining customers will leave. This week's cancellations are the first immediate response to the crash. The future of the company, however, will be determined by what happens in the next six months.
I guess they think that it is marshmallows spitting out the end of those things?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I wonder if some of these folks were already regretting their decision to tie up money in a space flight. People's finances change, life situations change, priorities change... and this is a convenient way to try to get out of the financial obligation.
No evidence on my part... just idle speculation.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
They knew what they were getting into.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
http://marginalrevolution.com/...
I could accept a 5% risk of death if I was doing something worthwhile: contributing to science or the colonization of Mars. But for a joy ride? Even if it's an order of magnitude better, a 5 in 1000 chance in death is still pretty high. That's a couple of orders of magnitude riskier than skydiving (0.0007%) or driving 10,000 miles. (0.0167%)
a) I'm impressed that you've reached a conclusion ahead of the NTSB. I'm sure they'll be glad for your help
b) Every interlock is a potential point of failure. If the interlock fails in a way that prevents the tail from deploying, everyone on board will die. Deciding to put the interlock there is not as obvious as a decision as the pundits seem to think.
Everyone has different risk tolerances.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
"A company can only survive a crisis like this by..." With literally zero precedent I'm not entirely sure why the author even bothered speculating. The sheer desire to GO TO SPACE is compelling enough to make this far from akin to, say, ocean voyages, or airships, or...anything really. IF I had the money to have bought a ticket I can promise you these events would not stop me from going. As Branson said, this is the cost of space travel, we have known this for a long, long, time. And I would bet most of the people who bought tickets did so knowing that going into SPACE is not a guaranteed safe trip.
While I am all for commercial space programs, I am a bit confused why NTSB is involved at this point.
From the NTSB website:
The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent Federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident the United States and significant accidents in other modes of transportation – railroad, highway, marine and pipeline.
So if you have a beef with that mandate then fortuitously today is a day in the US where you can act on your beliefs.
You did/will vote today?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I vote guillotine, but I'm a traditionalist.
Leave it to the French to make sure somebody looses their head....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Because the NTSB is involved, there will be less scope for a company initiated cover up, findings being withheld and important information not being passed to everyone in the industry.
Look at the de Havilland Comet pressurisation issues in the early 1950s - no one knew what was going on, it took a full test with a new fuselage immersed in water and then run through hundreds of pressurisation cycles to determine that metal fatigue was to blame. The findings from that investigation was made available to everyone in the aviation industry in the 1950s, not just to the internal de Havilland design team, so Boeing, Douglas, Hawker, Lockheed et al didn't have to go through their own investigations of their own crashes to come to the same conclusions.
It also opened up a whole new area of science in metals.
Open investigations make sense, because they produce open results, which benefits you and I as the people who may one day travel on a craft which might have potentially been susceptible to the same issues.
So if for example Boeing crashed an experimental prototype business jet, NTSB wouldn't need to be involved since Boeing is a for profit company and only rich people and companies would eventually buy the plane? Is that what you are saying?
Since FAA issued a license for the plane in question NTSB has to investigate the accident, and if the NTSB finds that the plane is unsafe they can recommend the FAA to rescind the license. Thats why NTSB is involved, it has nothing to do with "rich peoples hobbies".
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
30/700 = 4% even if you round it to the more than 700 as 800 you get 3.75% which is more than 3%, not less.
Better check those tolerances again.
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Well, I don't disagree with your complaint, but let me try and explain why the NTSB gets involved here.
Virgin is trying to do COMMERCIAL flights, not just experimental flights. They are going to take paying passengers. This means that the FAA must certify the craft as airworthy and approve the operation's safety. Being commercial, the safety standard is *really* high. They will be shooting for something on par with your average commercial air carrier.
So why the NTSB? Because of the "Safety" word in it's name. You see the FAA is not responsible for investigations of accidents only for the regulations and monitoring compliance with these regulations. The NTSB is a separate organization charged with the investigation of lapses of safety and routinely makes recommendations to the FAA (and other agencies) for rules and procedure changes. The NTSB is charged with determining the SAFETY of transportation, but has zero authority to make and enforce regulations about it.
This is actually a very ingenious arrangement. Because the NTSB is independent, you get the unvarnished truth about incidents it investigates. Where if the FAA did the investigation, or Virgin did it, there would be a tendency for bias in the results which would/could impact the real safety of the paying passengers.
So, I do not share your view. Sure the investigative expenses will be carried by the US tax payers, but you'd be surprised how much of the actual taxes collected actually come from the "rich" over the middle class. Of course, it depends on where you draw the line between "rich" and "middle class" but if you draw it at about $250K/year, you will find that the BULK of taxes paid in comes from the "rich" side of that line by a wide margin.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That's exactly the machine I was thinking about. Before I signed up for the Mars trip I would want a dozen cargo ships safely leaving and arriving before I put humans there.
Only someone making 1M++ is going to pop for a 250K fun ride. I certainly agree that 100-750k/yr pays alot of tax, I don't consider that group rich however. They are upper middle class and I agree bear the brunt of taxes. Its the .1or even .01% that branson is attracting, and they should be bearing the cost here. But these people have very good accountants who know how to avoid tax and have very good connections to get the most out of the system. Nope, I stand by my original argument, the US taxpayer is getting the shaft on this one and once again the tax system is shifting wealth to the super rich. As a friend of mine likes to say, soon mexico will be as corrupt as the US.
FWIW, the NTSB is involved in quite a bit more than just "commercial travel for the masses". You're probably just used to only/almost exclusively seeing them associated with commercial airliner crashes because they make the national (and international) news, while probably most of what the NTSB investigates doesn't. Take a look at their list of major open investigations, from a quick scan on my first cup of coffee it looks like probably only 25% or less made the national news. (And the major investigations list are only the tip of the iceberg.)
That being said, this was a test flight of a vehicle in the process of being certified by the FAA to carry paying passengers - and that places it in the NTSB's purview, same as the 787.
This is not about the NTSB being taxpayer funded (it simply has to be), Your argument is about class envy and not really who's paying the NTSB.
If you want to argue that the tax system in the USA is unfair, I'm not going to argue that much with you, the system is broken. Personally I think it is WAY too complex and that leads to perceived unfairness. But the fact remains, the top 1% of tax payers in the country pay 50% of the taxes. If anybody has a gripe, it's them, because the bottom 10% don't pay a dime in income taxes...We can argue about numbers all day long, the real question is how can we make it fair?
Do you care to suggest a way we can *fix* the tax system? Say doing away with deductions or perhaps moving to something like a national sales tax or even a flat tax?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's precisely NTSB that pointed out the (deceased) co-pilot pulled the feather lock lever to OFF position.
But they also pointed out this should not have deployed the feathers on its own: another level is required to rotate them in position.
This points to a mechanical failure of sort but will take months to confirm.
Larger than Columbus thought. The consensus among the experts, going back to Eratosthenes, was pretty much right on the money. Columbus was the only one who thought it was smaller (much smaller, by 2/3), which is why he was rejected by the Portuguese king. I don't know how he managed to convince the Spanish monarchs to fund his expedition, but if he hadn't gotten very lucky, he would indeed have killed his crew.