News just now that SpaceShipTwo has crashed in a powered test flight. One dead, one seriously injured, craft in pieces across the desert. A tragedy on many levels, and having met a lot of the people working on this, a real sadness and condolence to some great human beings. An online publication, Parabolic Arc, has been critical of the engine work and pressuring them to be more public as to the reasons for delays. Another issue recently has been investors and people who bought tickets who are loosing patience with a decade of development. Conversely, some in the space community has been critical about Virgin Galactic being TOO obsessed with safety and too many delays. It is possible there was an issue of them getting sick of delays and pushing the engineers. The same issue with the Deepwater Horizon/BP happened - to save ten hours,they skipped one safety step and added one too many risks. There have been two different versions of the engine and this was the first flight test of one considered more safe and reliable than the original one. The rumor mill has been focused on flaws with being able to scale up the original design from SpaceShipOne regarding the hybrid engine. While the hybrid engine is considered, on paper, the safest possible design, there are so few of them in history that they are their own category of unknowns. Its possible that this vacuum of engineering data may actually make them less safe than conventional alternatives that have been built since WWII. Its a lot of pressure on one company to pioneer an entire category of engine along with everything else. Thats a question for another day. Grace and comfort to the staff and families of Virgin Galactic. May we all live with your grace and brilliance and face challenges bravely, as before in confidence, as today in mourning, and into the future you are pioneering for us all.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:17:32 +0000
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