Virgin Galactic Lose Spaceship Two, Fate of Pilots Unknown

[NickFitz]

FlightRadar24 playback of the flight - they're the two aircraft at the left flying in tandem, that then separate. SSTwo's track stops shortly after.

Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!

[sbakoola]

You couldn't make me go up into space for all the money in the world, I was reading about the Shuttle Columbia disaster and the cause of that was just a suitcase sized piece of foam (similar to what you put in your loft but heat resistant) hitting the wing at Mach 2.0+. This created a small 3 inch hole for hot gases to penetrate the wing structure upon re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere. No way jose.

[minestrone]

If I had all the money in the world I would give it away to go into space.

[TykeMerc]

Experimental flights and flight testing has always been a terribly risky business, really sad, but it's sometimes the price of progress.

I've met a few test pilots through work and they're unsurprisingly rather driven, single minded folks, flying is very much it for them, the risk they ignore.

[minestrone]

It is not really progress though, it is the vanity project of Branson who has taken a shed load of money and fallen years behind on the project unable to go back on his commitment.

[Scruff]

One thing is in doubt. His daughter will no longer be on the first flight and neither will he...

[stek]

You couldn't make me go up into space for all the money in the world, I was reading about the Shuttle Columbia disaster and the cause of that was just a suitcase sized piece of foam (similar to what you put in your loft but heat resistant) hitting the wing at Mach 2.0+. This created a small 3 inch hole for hot gases to penetrate the wing structure upon re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere. No way jose.

My (Soviet) hero is Vlad Komorov, pilot of Soyuz-1, he ended up just what looked a burnt log, this was 1967 and it's still effing dangerous up there....

[zeitghost]

Goodness me, do you mean rocket science really is rocket science?

I'd never have guessed.

Restarting engines has always been "interesting".

I'm sure that somewhere there's a vid of the X15 sat on a static test stand with some lune in the cockpit.

Engine starts.

Engine intentionally shut down.

Engine restarts & the entire back end of the X15 disappears with the cockpit & embedded lune ending up about 40 or 50 yards further on.

He was ok.

Stick to dilithium, it's a fecking sight safer. g

Sort of like this:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource...hotos.382434p/

And, waddya know? here it is:

And lest we forget, 3 engineers died in an engine test back in 2006.

Virgin Galactic crash: Branson 'should stick to mobile phones' says expert - Telegraph

summary for dear old Freako: Branson should stick to selling phones and stop playing with stuff he doesn't understand.

"They should stop, give up. Go away and do something they might be good at like selling mobile phones.

They should stay out of the space business," said Carolynne Campbell-Knight, lead expert on rocket propulsion for the Netherlands-based International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS).

You think Branson knows how a mobile phone works any more than he does a rocket (rockets in general are probably simpler).

Also I hate this sort of thing - the only way we are going to advance as a civilization is by individuals breaking new boundaries - fook wits who think we should sit at home smoking the pipe, reading the telegraph and hating the p***s should go die quietly somewhere.

He's a business man, I doubt if he knows how any of it works.

It's a case of "make it so" just like the ****whits in charge of this place.

Interesting how many engineers have walked away from this particular enterprise(tm).

Oh, you could have had the same quote from the Wail & a shedload of others.

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com...nd_rockets.htm

Looks like both pilots ejected, but only one chute opened.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/space-pilo...6.html#bbT7xfd

For Freako: the surviving pilot unbuckled himself from the seat as the thing disintegrated.

[BrilloPad]

A shame there were no passengers on board. Like the house of commons.

[Archangel]

Looks like both pilots ejected, but only one chute opened.