Mojave test explosion {follow-up}

After a 3½ hour drive from La Quinta, talking to his employees by iPhone and checking Internet news reports, aircraft designer Burt Rutan faced reporters and cameras less than a mile from where a test site explosion killed two of his workers and critically injured four more. "We were doing a test we believed was completely safe," Rutan said, visibly emotional. "We don't know why it exploded."

Rutan told the reporters he hadn't yet had a chance to inspect the explosion site and was heading to Bakersfield to be with the four injured workers and their families at Kern Medical Center.

The explosion, heard by people in Lancaster and Palmdale, occurred about 2:45 p.m. Thursday at a Mojave Air and Space Port rocket engine testing facility where Scaled Composites employees were testing rocket components for the fleet of spaceships Rutan is building for British tycoon Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism flights.

The workers were testing the flow of nitrous oxide through a nozzle from a pressurized tank, as they had done many times on the SpaceShipOne rocket plane before its history-making space flights in 2004, and as they had done previously on the developing SpaceShipTwo program, Rutan said.

Nitrous oxide, otherwise known as laughing gas, provides oxygen for combustion in the unconventional hybrid rocket motors that Rutan used in SpaceShipOne and intends to use in the SpaceShipTwo craft. The rocket motors use rubber for fuel.

Rocket experts say the nitrous oxide-rubber engines are regarded as safer and less complicated than conventional rocket engines.

Sad news about this program and its people. I hope they can recover their development efforts.

This is where we're going to see the real advantage of private over public space programs. If this disaster had happened to NASA, the whole program would be halted for two years so all the "stakeholders" can wring their hands and file suits against each other.

Burt Rutan's crew, on the other hand, can find out what's wrong and try again next month. One big catch: now that Scaled Composites has fallen into large-enterprise hands, will Rutan still be able to do things in his accustomed way?

Interesting sidebar:

Mojave Blast Victim Worked Dream Job - Vitaliy Gisin Talks About Brother Who Works For Scaled Composites

Vitaliy Gisin has spoken out about his younger injured brother, Scaled Composites employee Eugene Gisin.

Although Vitaliy Gisin couldn’t speculate as to what happened in the Mojave explosion to injure his Russian-born brother, he said, “For his condition he is doing quite well.”

Eugene Gisin, eight years younger than Vitaliy Gisin, was one of three people injured at an explosion at Mojave Airport Thursday.

Three others were killed in the blast when two tanks of nitrous oxide exploded around 2:40 p.m. at a Scaled Composites rocket testing facility on the Mojave Airport premises.

Scaled Composites employees Eric Blackwell, 38, of Randsburg and Charles May, 45, of Mojave were killed instantly. A third person, Todd Ivens, 33, of Tehachapi, died at Kern Medical Center late Thursday evening.

According to Vitaliy, Eugene is the roommate of one of the other blast victims.

He also noted that his brother just graduated with a master’s degree from Cal Poly in aeronautics. “He was pursuing the dream of his life to work for an aerospace company.”

He also claims his brother understood the risks of working in the aeronautics industry.

Gisin, clearly shaken about his brother’s condition, had one positive comment to make about Thursday’s explosion.

“I’m glad this happened in America,” he said. “If this would have happened in Russia, most likely he wouldn’t have received this level of care.”

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