News New craft unveiled by Branson's galactic

[richfororbit]

Hi,

I just read this via yahoo news. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bransons-virgin-galactic-unveils-passenger-spaceship-225512206--finance.html

All the best to when they test the new successor to the one that was destroyed a couple of years back during test flight.

A small clip via CNN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARWWMiknT48

 

[kamaz]

Old wisdom is that an aircraft which crashes during testing ends up being very safe because after the crash all design flaws get fixed.

 

[Andy44]

Old wisdom is that an aircraft which crashes during testing ends up being very safe because after the crash all design flaws get fixed.

At least the ones that contributed to the crash.

After Challenger was destroyed, for example, the SRBs stopped being the most dangerous part of STS. The ET foam on the other hand...

And of course had STS lived long enough we likely would've eventually found something else crazy dangerous. The SSMEs were always a worry since the first mission; they turned out to be very safe and reliable but there were some very close calls, and of course run any machine long enough it will break sooner or later.

The Saturn V managed to get canceled before anyone got killed, but again, fly it enough times and one day you win the lottery nobody wants to win.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Nice nose art. Looks like something off a WWII bomber:

---------- Post added at 09:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:59 PM ----------

EDIT: My bad, this IS on the bomber (the launch aircraft).

 

[kamaz]

After Challenger was destroyed, for example, the SRBs stopped being the most dangerous part of STS. The ET foam on the other hand...

There is a theory that the problem only appeared because CFC-containing foam has been phased out.

 

[DaveS]

There is a theory that the problem only appeared because CFC-containing foam has been phased out.

Which is wrong. The bipod ramps never stopped using BX-250 foam insulation which contained the CFC chemicals. Only the actual tank acreage TPS was changed.

 

[Urwumpe]

There is a theory that the problem only appeared because CFC-containing foam has been phased out.

That must have happened already early in the program, since foam strikes appeared already on the OFT missions.

Also the foam contained a CFC until the end, what was replaced was CFC-11 by another type of CFC.


This document describe the different types of foam on the ET and the history of the changing blowing agents:

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/114022main_TPS_FS.pdf

The first external tanks with the new blowing agent foam flew already in 1996, but Columbia was still launched with an older BX-250 foam on its tank, because of the manufacturing processes and the gradual introduction of the new foam.

The real reason why there was a higher foam loss on the earlier space shuttle missions than on the final ones had been explained here:

https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost-discovery/

Nobody did ever bother testing the foam on a complete tank, going through a full thermal cycle as during launch preparation. The flexibility of the foam was vastly overestimated, it seems.

 

[Col_Klonk]

Nice nose art.

Bet the aliens will be queuing up to come to earth when they see that..

 

[Notebook]

Flight test for Virgin's replacement rocket plane

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37317990

Virgin Galactic has flown its new rocket plane for the first time in a “captive-carry test” above California.
The vehicle, known as Unity, replaces the one that crashed in 2014, killing one of its pilots.
In the captive-carry test, the rocket plane was carried to altitude by its mothership, Eve, to acquire data on aerodynamic performance.
Further such demos will be performed before Unity is dropped and allowed to fire its engine to get into space.
It will be an extended programme, however.

 

[Andy44]

:sigh: Can't they come up with a better name than "Unity"? I'll say this for NASA, when it comes to manned spacecraft, so far they've come up with cool names. Challenger, Eagle, etc. Even Spider and Gumdrop were cool in a pilot-humor kind of way.

"Unity" sounds like one of the lame names they come up with for Mars rovers and stuff like that.

 

[boogabooga]

Or ISS modules.