Drat. Hope the pilots are ok.
hope everyone is okay
Fox has it live. At least one piece of wreckage seen. Copters on the scene. Pilots thought to have been on board.
VG tweets a powered test flight ended with an anomaly. White Knight landed OK. Status of SS2 pilots unknown.
Blazing trail has never been a pastime for the faint of heart.
“...not good for the tourist trade...”
Surplus Soviet rocket engines stored next to the 10,000 crates of surplus Mosin-Nagants in a storage warehouse in Turkmenistan, and now this.
Dammit.
I like what they are doing, and I think this is a good method of getting the vehicle to space.
I do have to admit the White Knight carrier part of the duo, is very strange indeed. That said, it seems to work decently and I have high hopes for overall success.
Here’s to hoping the pilot(s) made it out safely.
“Sources said SpaceShipTwo exploded in midflight, and debris fell onto California’s Mojave Desert. “
I’d say an explosion is more than an anomaly.
Yikes.
Went from rubber based fuel to plastic?
Wonder if it boiled, burped, and ruptured?
I have a crisp $10 bill that says Obama races out to get on TV to mourn the lost civilian astronaut and uses the term “... touched the face of God.”
They made it look easy in 2004. We were not expecting failure, even though they lost three engineers testing a few years ago.
Weather.com is reporting one dead, one injured.
During a test flight over the Mojave Desert today, Virgin Galactic’s spaceship suffered a “serious anomaly” and crashed.
Two pilots were on board the plane, as is typical during test flights, and media reports claim that one parachute was seen on the ground. The California Highway Patrol is reporting one fatality, according to the AP.
There is a with parts of the plane scattered across the desert.
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-crashes/
My nephew rodeos with one of these pilots sons, he went with his family on a summer trip to California and had a ball...
The Dad took him up for a glider flight...
Needless to say he had a ball, and did not want to come back to Texas...
Hoping for the best, but prepared for the worse...I know my nephew will take this pretty hard...Regardless...
We’ll know soon...
This was bound to happen. Hopefully their investors have the stomachs to see this happen far more than they may be comfortable with.
We sure owe a great debt to those who are willing to risk all, like these test pilots. We would never have made it into space, were it not for people like this.
God bless them.
my thoughts and sympathies go to the pilot’s family.
does anyone else think space tourism is a dumb idea? we’ve only had - let’s see - 2 shuttle explosions, countless fatalities...and that’s just NASA’s record. If people want to risk their lives can’t they stick to bungee jumping, or maybe hiking Mt. Everest?
I wonder how many of the 700 space tourists have had a change of travel plans after today’s disaster? Anyways, I elect Justin Bieber to get the first ride...