Theres a very sad breaking story out of Mojave, CA: Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo vehicle broke apart during a powered test flight. The news is reporting one dead and another injured. My heart goes out to the families of the crew and to everyone at The Spaceship Company. 10 years ago, I was two days out of surgery and recovering at home. Under strict orders not to exert myself, I immediately exerted myself and drove with my mom up to Mojave. We slept in the car overnight, buffeted by desert wind and sand so we could be there to witness the first privately funded spaceflight. With stitches stretching, I watched SpaceShipOne drop from its carrier plane and rocket up above the 100km Kármán Line. It was an amazing experience and as I watched, I dreamed of a future where trips to space could be within my grasp and I pushed myself a little further than I should have, but the pain was worth sharing that moment. Today, a crew working to bring that dream closer suffered a tremendous loss while testing the successor to that vehicle, and I grieve. In the upcoming news cycle, you will see reporters looking for new angles. There will be criticism of the idea of space tourism, some will downplay the achievements by pointing at government projects that hit similar (on paper) milestones in the past. People will say some terrible things, and I know this because the same thing has happened whenever anyone else has pushed too hard on something and died for our new knowledge. Aviation is not without risk, not when pioneers are pushing boundaries and trying to expand what we know. New composite construction techniques, use of hybrid rocket motors in manned flight, innovations designed to take something as amazing as spaceflight and make it more like civil air transport... Its easy to think Weve Done It All and mapped everything, but there are still pioneers and there are still frontiers and we lost at least one of those people pushing on the edge of our knowledge today. Keep pushing. Keep pushing and remember that even in pain and loss, our world gets a little bigger and more incredible so Never. Stop. Pushing. I support Virgin Galactic/The Spaceship Company and I grieve with them. Please keep them in your thoughts now and in the upcoming days.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:20:49 +0000
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