Spaceship 2 Mishap

That sucks, the first link said they changed the rocket fuel from a rubber based compound to a plastic based compound in the hopes of boosting performance..... Sounds like it may have been too much energy for the engine. I hope the pilots are ok.
 
I hope Branson does not give up.
Early commercial aviation suffered it's losses after all.
 
Mutts said:
I hope Branson does not give up.
Early commercial aviation suffered it's losses after all.
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More than 700 people have paid 250 AMUs to stand in line to have the opportunity. Pretty sure Branson won't be giving up unless we get a string of failures back to back to back.

Although I would love to know what's going through the mind of celebrities such as Ashton Kucher and Justin Bieber when they see this....."whoa dude...this thing can crash??? I just wanted to brag I was an astronaut:rolleyes2:"
 
I wonder how many of those 700 might ask for their money back now.
 
All new projects suffer some set backs, I don't see many people canceling their deposit. This is a project backed by and supported by the forwRd thinking people ,who have the money. Wish them good luck on the Quest
 
Mutts said:
I hope Branson does not give up.
Early commercial aviation suffered it's losses after all.
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Sad thing is Branson is the only one that has a vision to keep expanding the possibilities of aviation. To think, except for nicer airplanes, there has been no real expansion, just sort of stagnant. Don't even have the Concorde anymore to see that there are possibilities.
 
TommyG said:
Sad thing is Branson is the only one that has a vision to keep expanding the possibilities of aviation. To think, except for nicer airplanes, there has been no real expansion, just sort of stagnant. Don't even have the Concorde anymore to see that there are possibilities.
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Branson has a love for aviation and the money to do it. There are still a lot of people out there with vision that just don't have the resources that Branson has.
Not too many venture capitalists out there willing to fund ideas with a limited market in GA. But I understand your point...and agree.

Innovations now are on the avionics side which is awesome...also the composite trend for airframes has been well recieved. Powerplant innovations are where we are lacking....but I see things coming around(slowly) for that too.
 
EppyGA said:
I wonder how many of those 700 might ask for their money back now.
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I expect very few. The CEO (who's a long time family friend - there are pictures of me playing with him as a baby) put it very well:

"Space is hard, and today was a tough day. We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today, and we are going to get through it," Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said. "The future rests in may ways on hard, hard days like this."
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All of us in aviation know these words to be true.
 
TommyG said:
Sad thing is Branson is the only one that has a vision to keep expanding the possibilities of aviation.
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The idea "sorta" was Burt Rutan's. He envisioned like 8 people paying $5000 for a chance with 3 getting to fly - and pilot it - at the end of a week of training in Florida.

It did occur to me that we should appreciate that we got to see Cirrus go from "Oh, yeah. One more Oshkosh dreamer wacko." to real airplane manufacturer.
 
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It's time to bury the idea of a solid rocket motor with people on board.

Virgin has now killed 4 people pursuing this.

They should look at traditional liquid fuels.
 
Looking at the photos posted on twitter of the break up of the plane, it looks as if the feather mechanism deployed under power at the plane flipped over nose to tail under power, pulling the tail booms off. First glance, will wait for better minds to figure it out.

First photo of sequence:

Almost looks like the plane's feather mechanism deployed under power. The plane's rocket motor is at the front of the plume, which is odd. Booms are starting to separate from the the plane. It would be easy to say that the plane suddenly turned 180 degrees under power and is traveling backwards with the rocket in front. But the perspective from the ground is difficult and we'll have to wait for more information. At break up the plume indicates powered flight. Debris seems consistent with inflight breakup, rather than explosion.


635503786041356086-AP-SpaceShipTwo.5.jpg



635503789315521568-AP-SpaceShipTwo.6.jpg


The tail booms have separated, the plane looks to be pitched up with the shadow against the exhaust plume.
 
Boy...... This really sucks...:sad::sad::sad:..

And that comes from a test pilot that installed a V-8 / 400 HP motor in a 150 HP kitplane...:redface:
 
skyking3286 said:
Looking at the photos posted on twitter of the break up of the plane, it looks as if the feather mechanism deployed under power at the plane flipped over nose to tail under power, pulling the tail booms off. First glance, will wait for better minds to figure it out.
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As I said on the other forum, telephoto pictures are always deceptive. What looks like the rocket exhaust could just be the rocket or a portion of the structure on fire. It uses a hybrid solid/liquid fuel design, and thus might continue low-grade burning after the explosion. Think of Challenger, and the solid rockets tumbling with fire coming out the nozzles.

Don't have any data available yet, so we don't know at what altitude the event occurred...or even what the target altitude was for the day's test. A minor explosion could have compromised the vehicle's structure sufficiently to cause it to break into major components WITHOUT spreading the wreckage very far. The aft fuselage, with the motor, might then start a tumble that would position the nozzle forward.

We know it wasn't a major explosion...not only did one of the occupants live, but intact parachutes were seen. It may have just been a "pop" which, combined with aerodynamic forces, broke the vehicle up. Or even caused a sudden "up elevator" action and the Gs pulled the thing apart.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Datadriver said:
It's time to bury the idea of a solid rocket motor with people on board.

Virgin has now killed 4 people pursuing this.

They should look at traditional liquid fuels.
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Well... in solid rockets' defense, Virgin has been trying to develop HYBRID motors. Conventional solid rockets are pretty safe, and very reliable. Just damn awkward to use, with no (easy) way to throttle them, or shut them down early, or restart 'em.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Sad, but anyone getting into that game knows it can happen, and has accepted it. RIP.
 
denverpilot said:
Sad, but anyone getting into that game knows it can happen, and has accepted it. RIP.
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Ah, but when "Tourist" flights happen, will the *passengers* really understand what they're getting into? There were a lot of politicians and whatnot clamoring for rides on the Shuttle, until Challenger exploded. Then it wasn't quite as popular.

Space travel is so far outside the understanding of the average human, the true dangers aren't readily perceived. In one short flight, you have the opportunity to asphyxiate, burn, get blown to tiny bits, freeze, or, worst of all, be marooned to experience gradual death by oxygen deprivation.

The last two won't happen on the sub-orbital flights, at least, but the first three are quite possible.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
As I said on the other forum, telephoto pictures are always deceptive. What looks like the rocket exhaust could just be the rocket or a portion of the structure on fire. It uses a hybrid solid/liquid fuel design, and thus might continue low-grade burning after the explosion. Think of Challenger, and the solid rockets tumbling with fire coming out the nozzles.

Don't have any data available yet, so we don't know at what altitude the event occurred...or even what the target altitude was for the day's test. A minor explosion could have compromised the vehicle's structure sufficiently to cause it to break into major components WITHOUT spreading the wreckage very far. The aft fuselage, with the motor, might then start a tumble that would position the nozzle forward.

We know it wasn't a major explosion...not only did one of the occupants live, but intact parachutes were seen. It may have just been a "pop" which, combined with aerodynamic forces, broke the vehicle up. Or even caused a sudden "up elevator" action and the Gs pulled the thing apart.

Ron Wanttaja
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Hopefully the spacecraft was heavily instrumented and data recorders were getting ALOT of data....

Also, does anyone know how seriously injured the survivor is?
 
N801BH said:
Hopefully the spacecraft was heavily instrumented and data recorders were getting ALOT of data....

Also, does anyone know how seriously injured the survivor is?
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A few media outlets said "serious", but haven't counted any "criticals" in the list yet.

Apparently he ejected, and that's always a violent nasty thing during an in flight breakup. Of course, the media is often wrong on that kind of stuff, and he may have just been thrown clear as it broke up.

I'm sure there will be more info coming soon enough.

I don't think if you're on the engineering team you'd ever fully get over knowing you killed folks.

You dig in and find the chain of events that caused it, but you'd always know the mistakes cost lives, if it did turn out to be a technical cause.

Tough day, and many more ahead for the folks involved. In start up ventures, the people aren't usually just co-workers, they're friends.
 
I've heard ejection seats from the press, but that's unconfirmed. This is a pretty low budget op, compared to NASA. They could have them, but if it was going out through the entry hatch, they had their work cut out for them. Didn't Space Ship One just release the nose off the plane for the pilot to get out?

Twitter feeds based on Keen Co. audio feeds from the rescue indicate neck and back injury to the surviving pilot. That would be consistent with high speed, high G injury.
 
I remember a community member.. Marc Zeitlin I believe... who went to work with them right before the engine explosion at Scaled.. Anyone know if he's ok?
 
TEFLONSEAN said:
Although I would love to know what's going through the mind of celebrities such as Ashton Kucher and Justin Bieber when they see this....."whoa dude...this thing can crash??? I just wanted to brag I was an astronaut:rolleyes2:"
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Hopefully they use the same rocket engine when Bieber goes up. :D
 
Doggtyred said:
I remember a community member.. Marc Zeitlin I believe... who went to work with them right before the engine explosion at Scaled.. Anyone know if he's ok?
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One of the space twitter pages listed the Scaled and Virgin pilots involved in flight testing, and Marc wasn't one of them. The page didn't identify which were in the accident spacecraft, though.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I'd venture to guess that there were no ejection seats, and that the surviving pilot was more or less flung out of the wreckage.
 
wanttaja said:
The page didn't identify which were in the accident spacecraft, though.
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The pilot has been identified, although indirectly, as has one of the WK2 pilots. The injured (reported) co-pilot has not been identified. I'm waiting a bit nervously. I barely remember MZ from the old rec.aviation days but I don't believe he was Scaled aircrew.

Nauga,
a little anxious
 
nauga said:
The pilot has been identified, although indirectly, as has one of the WK2 pilots. The injured (reported) co-pilot has not been identified. I'm waiting a bit nervously. I barely remember MZ from the old rec.aviation days but I don't believe he was Scaled aircrew.

Nauga,
a little anxious
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http://www.wunderground.com/news/virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-pilot-20141101

At a press conference Saturday, the Kern County Sheriff's Department identified the pilot as Michael Tyner Alsbury, 39, of Tehachapi, California.

Don't know if you had the pilot's name. No word on the second one.
 
wanttaja said:
Well... in solid rockets' defense, Virgin has been trying to develop HYBRID motors. Conventional solid rockets are pretty safe, and very reliable. Just damn awkward to use, with no (easy) way to throttle them, or shut them down early, or restart 'em.....

Ron Wanttaja
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That's what I thought. I'm not all that up on it, but I thought these were a hybrid process of exposing a solid hydrocarbon to a liquid oxidizer? Am I wrong? If it is that, it is far from a "solid rocket" where the fuel carries its own oxidizer.
 
overdrive148 said:
Don't know if you had the pilot's name. No word on the second one.
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I did but didn't have anything from a *reliable* source. I've heard very little about the injured pilot but I'm looking. I admit it's purely self-serving, and I'm not going to feed the machine by repeating suspect info. Thanks for the confirmation.

Nauga,
and his dynamic environment
 
Henning said:
The mother ship was not involved in the casualty right?
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I have no idea, but news reports seem to indicate that it was not; however, it has also been reported that the two craft separate at 50,000ft, and the incident initiated about 2 minutes after separation at 45,000ft. ??

RIP to the lost pilot and condolences to his loved ones.
 
overdrive148 said:
No word on the second one.
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Kern County Sheriff has confirmed Pete Siebold is the surviving pilot. IIRC He's been with Scaled since SS1 days.

Nauga,
and his industry network
 
wanttaja said:
Well... in solid rockets' defense, Virgin has been trying to develop HYBRID motors. Conventional solid rockets are pretty safe, and very reliable. Just damn awkward to use, with no (easy) way to throttle them, or shut them down early, or restart 'em.....

Ron Wanttaja
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they can't regulate the oxidizer flow?
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
they can't regulate the oxidizer flow?
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I think that's the whole idea with the hybrid design; give them something throttleable by adjusting the flow of a second component. Or, for that matter, able to shut it down if things go awry. It's a bit more important in manned systems than unmanned.

Conventional solid rocket are extremely simple. You cast the fuel (which includes both propellant and oxydizer) in a tube, you light it, and it burns until the propellant is all gone. In my career, I've been involved in a dozen or so satellites. All were sent into orbit using either solids as primary (BATSAT - Pegasus) or as strap-ons (DSP - Titan III/IV) or upper stages (TDRS - IUS).

Offhand, I can think of only two failures, and they were associated with modifying the design for productivity/cost (Challenger) or steering systems (one of the early IUSs). Probably were more, though.

Ron Wanttaja
 
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