Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
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A loss like this resonates throughout the entire team, or more accurately, the entire family involved. From the investors on top to the guys bucking the rivets, one and all are devastated at a very personal level, the money involved be damned. That is a distant second to the sense of family on projects like this, the overwhelming sense of loss....
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+1 to that. I can't imagine that
any of those directly involved in this effort are
in it for the money.
That said, I see this effort as so far away (lagging) from the efforts of the likes of Boeing. Essentially, the SS1 / SS2 teams have been working hard on a cheap way to touch space. --and they did touch space with SS1.
From Burt Rutan 2003; "
Safety, of course is paramount, but minimum cost is critical. " per
Scaled Composites: SpaceShipOne
All of these types of ventures are a
balance between risk vs cost. There is that saying about life - it's a balance between risk and boredom.
The people at Scaled/Virgin made decisions about that balance. So, while I agree that it's stupid to MMQB that these people shouldn't have taken risk, the spectacular failure points to a very high likelihood of cutting one too many corner. --what that is, I would really like to know.
For me, and my experience with carbon-fiber clad aramid honeycomb, I look at that wreckage and see far too fragile of a structure for handling that much energy. Of course I have nothing quantitative. Maybe the failure will prove to be something completely unrelated; but still, for my personal risk assessment, you couldn't pay me to go super-sonic in that craft. OTOH, I would jump at a chance to ride in a 50 year old tech SR-71.