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Here's a much more hard hitting article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11203634/Branson-spaceship-explosion-The-missed-warnings.htm

Here's a much more hard hitting article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11203634/Branson-spaceship-explosion-The-missed-warnings.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1... It's tempting as a space enthusiast to see criticism of Virgin Galactic and Scaled's operations as attacks against spaceflight or commercial space activities or the space tourism business in general. But people should not let their enthusiasm carry them to far into ignoring the very real problems at VG and Scaled. They have unquestionably taken a lax attitude toward security, as demonstrated most abundantly by the previous fatal accident at Scaled/VG which took 3 lives during a test that should have not injured a single person if they had been following standard safety practices. Moreover, they've consistently turned a deaf ear on criticisms of their engine design and its safety, criticisms which now appear to have been quite well founded. Yes sometimes rockets are tricky. Sometimes bad things happen to otherwise good designs. That's the nature of probability. But bad things happen to bad designs too, and we should be sensitive to those circumstances.

7952 12y ago
Beyond issues with the engine I wonder if people underestimate the risk of the actual concept. It seems very complicated. Flying at high speed in the atmosphere is a serious undertaking even without a rocket motor. However advanced aeronautics may be the atmosphere is still a very hostile environment.
- InclinedPlane 12y ago
  If they had a rocketplane that had a reasonable rocket motor in it that would enable them to do quick turnarounds by simply refueling, doing a little bit of inspection, and reflying, then it might be possible to validate the idea through an extensive test flight program, just as we've done with airplanes. Put in a hundred or so test flights exploring the flight envelope and it would be possible to gain some confidence in the system. With the design that Virgin Galactic / Scaled have now I don't see that as a reasonable possibility, and I don't think it is a safe system (largely due to the rocket, the airframe might be a perfectly fine design).
hga 12y ago
Here's another: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/01/what-happened-to-virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo/?singlepage=true http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/01/what-happened-to-virgin... Where Raul Simberg makes the point that the fallacy of sunk costs is likely in play: I also suspect that this will be the nail in the coffin for the hybrid program. Many in the industry (including me) told Virgin after the fatal test-stand explosion in 2007 that they needed to redesign and go to a liquid engine, but they had designed the airframe for the hybrid, and a liquid would have had different mass characteristics, probably necessitating a spacecraft redesign, which they were loath to do. The company appears to have been stuck in a “sunk cost” trap for years, with the belief that, despite all the years of delays, just a little more money and a little more time would finally get them to a workable engine. Yesterday morning, the trap snapped shut.

7952 12y ago

Beyond issues with the engine I wonder if people underestimate the risk of the actual concept. It seems very complicated. Flying at high speed in the atmosphere is a serious undertaking even without a rocket motor. However advanced aeronautics may be the atmosphere is still a very hostile environment.

InclinedPlane 12y ago
If they had a rocketplane that had a reasonable rocket motor in it that would enable them to do quick turnarounds by simply refueling, doing a little bit of inspection, and reflying, then it might be possible to validate the idea through an extensive test flight program, just as we've done with airplanes. Put in a hundred or so test flights exploring the flight envelope and it would be possible to gain some confidence in the system. With the design that Virgin Galactic / Scaled have now I don't see that as a reasonable possibility, and I don't think it is a safe system (largely due to the rocket, the airframe might be a perfectly fine design).

hga 12y ago

Here's another: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/01/what-happened-to-virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo/?singlepage=true http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/01/what-happened-to-virgin... Where Raul Simberg makes the point that the fallacy of sunk costs is likely in play: I also suspect that this will be the nail in the coffin for the hybrid program. Many in the industry (including me) told Virgin after the fatal test-stand explosion in 2007 that they needed to redesign and go to a liquid engine, but they had designed the airframe for the hybrid, and a liquid would have had different mass characteristics, probably necessitating a spacecraft redesign, which they were loath to do. The company appears to have been stuck in a “sunk cost” trap for years, with the belief that, despite all the years of delays, just a little more money and a little more time would finally get them to a workable engine. Yesterday morning, the trap snapped shut.