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!
News Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo accident during powered test flight
- Thread starter Cosmic Penguin
- Start date
MaverickSawyer
Acolyte of the Probe
Just waiting for the third shoe to drop...
Andy44
owner: Oil Creek Astronautix
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.
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
Passed the Turing Test
Randomness is way more clustered than you intuitively expect.
http://www.wired.com/2012/12/what-does-randomness-look-like/
More important than "fatalities per year" is probably "fatalities per flight"...
Andy44
owner: Oil Creek Astronautix
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.
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MaverickSawyer
Acolyte of the Probe
Well, the pictures shown on NBC Nightly News tell a pretty grim tale... looks really bad.
Kyle
Armchair Astronaut
Indeed, looks like the vehicle disintegrated.
MaverickSawyer
Acolyte of the Probe
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
Resident Crazy Person
do you have a link to the footage,i haven't been able to find it
Astro SG Wise
Future Orion MPCV Pilot
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
Acolyte of the Probe
It seems to have been removed.
Quick_Nick
Passed the Turing Test
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.
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
NEA Scout Wrencher
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NTSB agents should be at the crash site tomorrow morning. Here's a statement from Virgin Galactic.
http://www.virgingalactic.com
http://www.virgingalactic.com
Quick_Nick
Passed the Turing Test
Yeah, I'm not liking my new signature too much this week. It holds too true.
Abdullah
armchair engineer
Linguofreak
Well-known member
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).
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