Virgin galactics SpaceShipTwo has crashed killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other. Other than that there is not much information out there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29857182 (you may or may not be able to view that link) http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/31/spaceshiptwo-richard-branson-virgin-crash-mojave http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2816224/Virgin-Galactic-spaceship-flight-problem.html
When i heard about the crash it really made me kinda sad. Space travel has had some setbacks this week unfortunately. Hopefully Virgin Galactic keeps trying with the whole space tourism thing
Yeah, its pretty sad to hear. I hope the injured pilot makes a recovery. I have a feeling Virgin Galactic is going to have a shitstorm of hate coming from people as well which is hardly going to help things. Hopefully they don't end Virgin Galactic because it would be shame if the deceased pilot were to die in vain. At least they died doing something they love.
I have a feeling that Galactic wont quit. Richard Branson is a crazy bastard (good kind of crazy) and he's been determined on making space available for the "average" person for a long time, and i dont think that this will stop him. Media will definitely make this into a much bigger tragedy than it already is. My condolences go out to the deceased and injured pilots and their families.
So two private companies exploring space travel/supply schemes experience catastrophic failures, no one should be surprised. These things happen and are inevitable. Quite frankly I'm proud of the progress to this point and these incidents will not stop future experimentation. Wanna' have context on the issue?...go have a chat with the fellows who went to the moon or Chuck Yeager. The fact that it took this long for major failures to happen is a testament to the ceaseless refinement of the technologies developed back in the day, developed with considerable loss of life and treasure. The human race must learn to live in space and these guys are forging ahead with that thankless task. God speed.
Agreed. Im damn roud of what has been accomplished so far, and im happy that there havnt been more incidents like this. Failures and even death are inevitable when it comes to space travel, this is (or at least should be) common knowledge. Im just a bit perturbed at the fact that there have been 2 catastrophic failures in the span of less than a week. That fact will send the media and anti-space people crazy (yes, sadly there are anti space people)
back in the early days of water faring ships I doubt there was an absence of casualties and setbacks. This is par for the course if we want space faring ships
Anyones death is tragic (well, ok, there are a few complete and utter idiots that nobody will miss Maybe some dictators and the like too). But agreed, its par for the course. Looking at the few photos of the wreckage, the survivor is lucky to be alive.
No matter how loud and often they will repeat a 1970s phrase 'failure is not an option', the words 'spaceflight', 'routine', and 'safe' will never ever go together. It's time to deal with it.
That is what people said about trains. That is what people said about automobiles. That is what people said about aircraft.
They will get it eventually. I imagine it will be like getting on a plane, there will still be a small amount of inherent risk involved most likely caused by other factors but it will be very safe eventually.
From what I've seen, both pilots of the ship ejected, but only one survived the ejection/landing. It is a tragic thing to happen, but it has to happen if we want to move forward in space travel.
Hopefully the incident will lead to better ejection systems and shielding of those systems in the future. There will likely be other stuff that fails down the line and it would be nice if the "get the hell outta there" system actually worked so that the pilots have a properly valid second chance at not dying.
So, apparently, it had nothing to do with the engine, as many people thought. I suggest you watch the video, as it gives more details: . What I understand is that the feathers (the two large tails) moved to a vertical position when they shouldn't have. (imported from here) The tails induce more drag when moved to that position, that's their purpose when going vertical.
I havent watched the video but based on that i guess the movement of the wings must have made it unstable with the engine engaged at the same time causing it to fall out of the sky, possibly spinning like a Catherin wheel on the way down which could possibly cause an ejection system to have issues (note that what i just said may be completely wrong, its just what i have haphazardly pieced together using the limit knowledge of what happened that i have)
That would make sense i guess, i imagine causing the drag with the engine on would cause a huge amount of force, if that is the case well in excess of the amount that the vehicle could obviously take. Surely on a test vehicle they would have all of this sort of stuff recorded onto a black box device or even have it streamed back to base. Did they not have live video feeds of anything?
