Tragic news, Whiteknight2 has crashed during flight test.

[Jim Kallinen]

The news for Virgin Galalatic is terrible. The only operating Whiteknight2 vehicle has suffered a serious anomoly during the power up test after release from drop ship.

One pilot is dead the other in serious condition. The program is more a less over. With out another aircraft to replace it.

 

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-crashes-during-flight-test

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29857182

 

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2553565094001/virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-crashes-in-mojave-desert/#sp=watch-live

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1364455/one-dead-as-virgin-galactic-spaceship-crashes

 

Edited October 31, 2014 by Jim Kallinen

[sqrt(-1)]

This is not good.  My heart goes out to the families of the pilots.

[curtosis]

(Note that the headline is incorrect. White Knight 2 is the drop ship, which landed safely. Space Ship 2 is the vehicle that crashed.)

 

A tragic loss, and a reminder of the risks these brave test pilots take.

[Jim Kallinen]

(Note that the headline is incorrect. White Knight 2 is the drop ship, which landed safely. Space Ship 2 is the vehicle that crashed.)

 

A tragic loss, and a reminder of the risks these brave test pilots take.

Tried to correct it in edit, they don`t allow topic editing. Sad.

[poppet]

Very sad

[eaglewing7]

The program is more a less over.

 

I highly doubt that.  There is a lot of money behind this program, and while this is certainly a serious setback for Virgin and Scaled Composites, it will likely drive them to push for future successes.

 

Sad that the pilot has died, but as was noted in the BBC coverage of this event, this further proves that the quest for space is, and always will be a dangerous undertaking.

[Jim Kallinen]

What I ment was, its over for now, they must finish building their other Spacehip 2 to be able to continue flight testing. This looks be quite a long long road since Carbon fiber

construction is time consuming and exacting. Could be a year or more before it flys again.

 

So sad for the entire team for Virgin Galactic. RIP.

[Nicola_M]

Some of the stuff that's coming out in the media here in the UK is pretty damning; investigative journalist saying the program has been troubled by walkouts over an abject and systemic lack of safety, with corners being cut, and the prediction of eventual fatalities. Seems they've reached that stage.

Aside from that, some own-goals from Branson coming out too.  I would not be surprised if this is the end of the program, personally. 

 

To say that it is/was "space exploration" is stretching it a bit.  It wasn't actually going into space, just the edge of it, and really at the end of the day it is just a jolly for the rich and famous - akin to the Concorde "London to Finland airspace and back" (to meet Santa).