Space Ship Two down in Mojave

[wlawr005]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/31/virgin-galactic-spaceship-problem/18253295/

Not a great week for aviation. One pilot ejected, the other was killed.

Fly safe.

 

[lowflier03]

Between this and the Antares. Perhaps the government should rethink its strategy of essentially abandoning NASA.

 

[picklesuit]

Apollo 1, Apollo 13, Challenger, and Columbia might say otherwise...

 

[nittany03]

The more I deal with the Federal government, the more I realize that the pathway to the stars is going to be bankrolled by guys with names like Allen, Bezos, and Branson. And like some of them or not (don't get me started on Bezos), I'm OK with that. From what I've heard, this may go back to an engineering decision Burt Rutan made in going with a solid-fueled, liquid-oxidized engine instead of a liquid-fueled one. Apparently on SpaceShipOne, that had a tendency to shake loose chunks of propellant which could clog the nozzle and cause an explosion.

PJMedia is an arch-conservative site, but whether or not that's your particular political cup of tea, an aerospace engineer has his thoughts here. http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/01/what-happened-to-virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo/?singlepage=true

Does this mean that the FAA should have been more involved in regulating this activity? No. This was a test flight. This is what test flights are for. The desert around Mojave has a decades-long history of smoking holes in the ground and test-pilot funerals, though most of them usually originate from Edwards AFB, a few mile to the south.

And the way to honor the guy whose funeral it is is to gather data, fix the error, and press.

 

[VMO4]

Reports today say Peter Seibold left the disintegrating craft at nearly 60000 feet close to Mach 1, and rode down to about 20k before deploying his chute. Just friggin wow...

 

[Flash]

Reports today say Peter Seibold left the disintegrating craft at nearly 60000 feet close to Mach 1, and rode down to about 20k before deploying his chute. Just friggin wow...

From what I have read the spacecraft broke apart and he really didn't have to 'leave'. That happened to an aircrewman in an A-3 in my squadron long ago, some of the older guys knew him and his story. They were doing some manuevers and the aircraft started breaking part, his seat came lose and started bouncing around the aircraft then blacked out. The next thing he knows he was riding his seat through the air so he opened his chute and blacked out again. He was the only one to survive.

 

[wink]

From what I have read the spacecraft broke apart and he really didn't have to 'leave'. That happened to an aircrewman in and A-3 in my squadron long ago, some of the older guys knew him and his story. They were doing some manuevers and the aircraft started breaking part, his seat came lose and started bouncing out of the aircraft then blacked out. The next thing he knows he was riding his seat through the air so he opened his chute and blacked out again. He was the only one to survive.

My Airwing. Was on the SAR event and the second Viking over the survivor. CAG was with us in the right seat and we took OSC. I still remember the kid telling CAG over his PRC-97 that he was just sitting there and then was tumbling through the air. Hell of a loss. Deep Sea 005, crew of 10, 9 lost.