Virgin Galactic spaceship explodes, killing 1 pilot

[Drache]

In the second commercial space disaster this week, Virgin Galactic's tourism rocketship exploded and crashed Friday after a malfunction during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.

A witness said the SpaceShipTwo blew up shortly after its engine fired when it was dropped from the WhiteKnight aircraft that carried it aloft, the Associated Press reported. Wreckage was scattered over a wide area near Cantil, in Kern County.

The pilot ejected and was taken to a hospital, but the co-pilot suffered fatal injuries, the Kern County Sheriff's Office reported. Their identities were not immediately released.

Virgin Galactic, owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, said the craft "suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle." The malfunction was not immediately identified.

The test flight was conducted by Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic's partner. The weather was clear, and winds were light at time of the crash, according to AccuWeather meteorologists.

Branson said Friday afternoon on Twitter he was "flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team."

"Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support," he tweeted.

Friday's flight was the 55th time SpaceShipTwo had been released by the mothership and was flying independently.

Branson has been developing the suborbital SpaceShipTwo at Mojave Air and Space Port, northeast of Los Angeles.

In July 2007, three facility workers died and three were injured in an explosion during a test of the vehicle's propellant system by Scaled Composites, which was founded by aviation entrepreneur Burt Rutan.

Virgin Galactic announced in May that it was changing SpaceShipTwo's hybrid propellant because the original rubber-based fuel mix caused serious engine stability after firing for about 20 seconds.

Branson told USA TODAY in 2011 that he envisioned Virgin Galactic expanding from suborbital to orbital travel and even flights between continents that could be done in a fraction of the time they take by airplane.

Made of carbon composites, SpaceShipTwo was about twice a large as its prototype predecessor, SpaceShipOne. It was 60 feet long with a cabin diameter of 90 inches, about the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet without a floor. In addition to two pilots, it was designed to carry six passengers.

"The spaceship can be thought of as an air launched glider with a rocket motor and a couple of extra systems for spaceflight," the company says.

In 2011, development costs for SpaceShipTwo were estimated at $400 million, three times the original projections.

Vrgin Galactic is owned by Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Seats for future flights cost $250,000, prepaid.

SpaceShipTwo is one of several spacecraft owned by New York-based Virgin Galactic, a unit of privately held Virgin Group. The company also owns the mothership WhiteKnightTwo – which Branson christened Eve, after his mother – and LauncherOne, an orbital launch vehicle.

[mrsskip68]

"Refund please!"

[myk]

Expanding mankind's horizons will not be cheap, easy, or clean; blood will be spilled, but it will be the price we pay to explore our universe, ourselves...

[Mike DC]

                       
They're trying to make a financially workable step into space.  Space needs a cash crop before we will venture very far into it. 

Columbus found the Americas in 1492 . . . but Europeans had still hardly touched it in 1592.  It was more like 1692 before Europeans had made a big dent on the place.  Europeans didn't spend any serious time here until they found profitable reasons.  And the trip across the Atlantic required no new tech in those days, just a few months of supplies & decent luck crossing the ocean.
     

[RallyeMike]

They're trying to make a financially workable step into space.  Space needs a cash crop before we will venture very far into it.

Very true. And not only a cash crop, but one that has returns bigger than the investment. We aren't leaving this rock for a very, very long time to come.

[polywideblock]

they have one already     

                even NASA is getting in on the act offering to help private ventures  to "mine the moon " http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24999-lunar-law-row-hots-up-as-nasa-enters-private-moon-rush.html

[Mytur Binsdirti]

Damn, why couldn't that twit Bieber have been on that flight. 

[John_Kunkel]

Here's an interesting video taken before the disaster.

http://www.chonday.com/Videos/jegalctospc2