Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes
 

This is shocking news. It was on my list to do one of these flights. VG has kiosks at all the Virgin Galaxy lounges. I've been following it for years. Really, really terrible news for the private space travel industry.

was in mojave for the first couple test flights. tragic, but i hope this does not stop rutan.

These are risky endeavors. Tragic as it is, accidents are inevitable. I too hope this doesn't stop Rutan and everyone else trying.

RIP to the deceased, and prayers for the injured.

Space travel is difficult.

It is sad that what is likely some small mistake has set them back many years.

Wonder how many cancellations the guy has gotten?

"Book a trip to the moon and Die" That ought to be an enticing sales promo....

These private rockets are a whole new frontier. This will certainly not be the last crash. RIP to the brave guys that died.

In fact, if the private Mars mission ever gets off the ground, I give those guys zero chance of surviving the trip, let alone setting up a working Mars base.

it's a bad week to be a rocket scientist. :-/

Ad astra per aspera.

Yes, but it is rocket science...

The brave do first so the rest of us can do later.

I think "private" space endeavors are much over-hyped. There is not really any technical reason why private space technology should be much cheaper than NASA projects and be as safe. It just is inherent in "private" (for-profit) enterprises that corners are cut. It is called "efficiency". Safety will inevitably be sacrificed on the altar of profitability. Space flight is not like riding in a car that can just stop and wait by the side of the road for help if anything goes wrong. Failure No.1 this week was because the "private" enterprise used 40 year old, discarded, Russian rocket engines because they were cheap. And the Virgin "space" plane probably crashed because it did not use the same safety protocols that NASA uses.

Private space flights proved to be extremely risky enterprises!

On this logic all aircraft would be government built as well? From what I can gather, this thing was in the atmosphere at the time of failure, only real differential from a jet airliner is engine type.....

Dennis

Read up on the history of military test flying at places like Edwards AFB as well as the setbacks of the U.S. space program. Lots of smoking holes out there with brave men's remains in them. These billionaires all want to be Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong and guess what, you can get killed. Yes, it's sad for the families involved and a setback for private space junketeering but smoking holes in the ground are part of the deal.

Can you explain the draw to this $200k joy ride?

I mean this is hardly space travel. ...the mother ship (a jet) takes you to 50,000ft, drops, and the rocket pushes you up another 20k ft.

For perspective, the google exec guy went about twice as high in a balloon ... and then jumped out.

:rolleyes: What NASA did was in a whole different league.(speeds, altitude and payload - HUGE! ) And, NASA had some rather spectacular losses, even with NASA safety protocols.

Um,

More like another 200k ft.

62 miles is about 325,000 ft, or about 200,000 ft. more than the skydivers. I believe the 100 km limit is partly based on it being higher than a balloon or airplane can fly- calculated with some sort of maximum feasible coefficient of lift for a wing along with other performance parameters, basically the plane would need to fly so fast that it would be in orbit (or escape velocity) at that point, not flying.

Thanks. I had read 71k ft. Maybe that was SS1. (?)

Found what I had read

So, their plans are to go much higher. hmmmm.... I think they'll need a bigger rocket.