News Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo accident during powered test flight

[rhoude57]

Add to that the explosion of the SpaceX F9R during launch in August and the half failure of the 11 Oct Falcon 9 launch that failed to push an Orbcomm satellite into orbit and one can safely say that rocket science is still... yup... Rocket Science!

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Just waiting for the third shoe to drop...

 

[Andy44]

There have also been at least three recent plane crashes. Things happen in clumps for some odd reason.

SpaceShip 1's successful flight was already a decade ago and SS2 seemed to take forever to get going; this is a major setback.

And it's not the first fatal accident in the program, either.

For being essentially nothing, space is awful hard.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Things happen in clumps for some odd reason.

Randomness is way more clustered than you intuitively expect.
http://www.wired.com/2012/12/what-does-randomness-look-like/

 

[rhoude57]

Let's just say I won't be hustling to the front of the line to volunteer for the first passenger flights on either the Virgin Spaceship or the Dragon V2.

 

[Frilock]

One fatality in 10 years of manned flight. That's actually a lower rate than I figured when they made their first flight.

 

[Hielor]

One fatality in 10 years of manned flight. That's actually a lower rate than I figured when they made their first flight.

More important than "fatalities per year" is probably "fatalities per flight"...

 

[Andy44]

More important than "fatalities per year" is probably "fatalities per flight"...

Indeed. Most of those ten years was spent doing no flying at all.

And even without flying, this thing still killed 3 people.

Rockets are hard.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Well, the pictures shown on NBC Nightly News tell a pretty grim tale... looks really bad.

 

[Kyle]

Well, the pictures shown on NBC Nightly News tell a pretty grim tale... looks really bad.

Indeed, looks like the vehicle disintegrated.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Upon closer examination of the footage, it appears that the main combustion chamber let go. The oxidizer tank is largely intact, but everything else is pretty badly trashed.

 

[communist]

Upon closer examination of the footage, it appears that the main combustion chamber let go. The oxidizer tank is largely intact, but everything else is pretty badly trashed.

do you have a link to the footage,i haven't been able to find it

 

[Astro SG Wise]

This has not been a good week for private spaceflight.

I never would've expected to EVER see Antares fail, let alone SpaceShipTwo...

I agree. I have built up a confidence in the commercial space programs, and Antares was the first rocket failure I had actually ever seen. Wow. Also, as we have seen in the past, spaceflight has been hugely effected by the popularity and appeal to the public. When people's happiness goes down, the time until the next launch goes up. We have seen this with constellation, and generally, many haven't heard of Orion, let alone dragon anyway. (One of the few reasons some may know about Cygnus is the rocket launch.) Oh well...:shrug: What I'm worried about is the public's idea of spaceflight. That can many times cause problems.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

do you have a link to the footage,i haven't been able to find it

It seems to have been removed.

 

[Quick_Nick]

It has already been said but is more certain now:
Authorities confirmed that one pilot died and the other parachuted with injuries. The extent of those injuries still seems to vary by source.

I saw a couple of flight test engineers present at the symposium I attended on Saturday. I don't know if they would be pilots on this flight. But everyone on the team will be feeling the loss at least.

 

[Codz]

NTSB agents should be at the crash site tomorrow morning. Here's a statement from Virgin Galactic.

http://www.virgingalactic.com

 

[Abdullah]

OH MY I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!!!

 

[Quick_Nick]

Yeah, I'm not liking my new signature too much this week. It holds too true.

 

[Abdullah]

A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode..[/R

Right! That's the Golden Rule of rocketry.

 

[Linguofreak]

I never would've expected to EVER see Antares fail, let alone SpaceShipTwo...

For the foreseeable future *any* launch vehicle *must* be expected to fail catastrophically and routinely (the "routinely" part is masked by the fact that flight rates tend to be low, but if aircraft failed as often as launch vehicles, even fairly small airports would likely have several crashes a day).