Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes

Thrill

The fate of the two pilots is as yet unknown. spaceship crashed during test flight over California's Mojave Desert.

Not a good couple of days for the space industry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/31/us-space-crash-virgin-idUSKBN0IK24220141031?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Mena

Sky was calling it an 'anomaly' last I saw. Man did the fudge that.

RobertKK

A bad week for space missions.

Thrill

1 dead, 1 injured apparently

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1TAoljCMAAmw5q.jpg:large


EDIT: California Highway Patrol reports 1 fatality, 1 major injury after SpaceShipTwo accident.

Witness reports SpaceShipTwo exploded in flight after ignition of rocket


.

Kermit.de.frog

I'd say Bob Geldof is bricking himself right about now.

My name is URL

Amazing that both pilots weren't killed instantly if it exploded mid-air

padd b1975

Was Bill Cullen on board?

FloatingVoter

padd b1975 wrote: »

Was Bill Cullen on board?

Stop getting peoples hopes up.

The_Valeyard

Poor families.


Not good for the whole space flight industry.

Hopefully lessons will be learned and this Will not happen again.

The One Doctor

To be blunt, Virgin Galactic is a pathetic joke, almost a scam really. Suborbital flights have no purpose whatsoever beyond entertainment. Branson describing the flights as 'a new dawn', 'pushing the boundaries' etc is just stupid. The vehicle is accelerating straight up, which imposes almost no aerodynamic load. The hybrid rocket is beyond a joke. It's useless in any practical way and will never be used for space travel. Branson and Virgin have spent $400 million on this joke. Maybe they're in denial. And this isn't the first time their rocket engine has killed people.

Tail Docker

The One Doctor wrote: »

To be blunt, Virgin Galactic is a pathetic joke, almost a scam really. Suborbital flights have no purpose whatsoever beyond entertainment. Branson describing the flights as 'a new dawn', 'pushing the boundaries' etc is just stupid. The vehicle is accelerating straight up, which imposes almost no aerodynamic load. The hybrid rocket is beyond a joke. It's useless in any practical way and will never be used for space travel. Branson and Virgin have spent $400 million on this joke. Maybe they're in denial. And this isn't the first time their rocket engine has killed people.

Doubtful. Mostly outside investors. The rest I agree 100%. The rocket motor and it's producer have an interesting history too. Many said it would go boom. It's good, cheap publicity for Virgin, or at least it was, until **** got real.

mikeyjames9

padd b1975 wrote: »

Was Bill Cullen on board?

tomorrow

uch

Hey thats why we dont need Galactic Virgin's

BlaasForRafa

This just seems like another one of Branson's ego-stroking projects. Aside from the passenger carrying capability it does nothing really new, the performance of the craft isn't even on a par with the X-15 from 50 years ago.

Boring username

A quiet announcement from Virgin on the future of the project. It would appear that Virgin are to take full control of the project now, with Scaled Composites offering 'support' on a consultancy basis:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2928266/Virgin-Galactic-splits-partner-company-built-doomed-SpaceShipTwo-rocket-following-fatal-crash-killed-test-pilot.html

I don't know if Virgin have the technical ability to compete with Scaled Composites and the knowledge of Burt Rutan.