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A Bad Blow For Virgin Galactic
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I spotted this story as a link on the spaceweather.com website.
http://
It says Virgin Galactic gas already received money for advance booking by celebs but I can already hear the frantic scratchings of pens at Life Insurance offices, racing to get their exclusion clauses in place.
On the upside, it seems Justim Bieber holds a ticket… ;-)
http://
It says Virgin Galactic gas already received money for advance booking by celebs but I can already hear the frantic scratchings of pens at Life Insurance offices, racing to get their exclusion clauses in place.
On the upside, it seems Justim Bieber holds a ticket… ;-)
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Yes, the humour was misplaced and I don't know how the mis-spelled name escaped my attention either.
As the saying has it, "there are old pilots and bold pilots... but no old, bold, pilots". Without the bold ones we wouldn't have had the Schneider Trophy, Spitfires, jet-powered flight, supersonic aircraft or space flight. What a sad state of affairs that would be.
The tricky thing, for a -civilian- space programme is that it must go through the same kind of baby-steps and safety tests that military-grade flight research had to go through. NASA borrowed crews from the military, of course. All of those pilots could just as easily have gone to risk their lives in Korea and Vietnam as conduct high-risk test flying over home soil.
Personally, I do not see going into space as an extension of the experience of getting on board a conventional aircraft, with the associated -track record- of safe operation. I therefore feel that there should be half a dozen (at least!) full trips to space by the test programme before they start taking paying passengers - performed by pilots who accept the safety risks.
There will be a corresponding increase in the ticket price, to recoup the costs of extended testing.
Test programme on the Boeing-777 was a full year's worth and a multiplicity of scenarios.
As the saying has it, "there are old pilots and bold pilots... but no old, bold, pilots". Without the bold ones we wouldn't have had the Schneider Trophy, Spitfires, jet-powered flight, supersonic aircraft or space flight. What a sad state of affairs that would be.
The tricky thing, for a -civilian- space programme is that it must go through the same kind of baby-steps and safety tests that military-grade flight research had to go through. NASA borrowed crews from the military, of course. All of those pilots could just as easily have gone to risk their lives in Korea and Vietnam as conduct high-risk test flying over home soil.
Personally, I do not see going into space as an extension of the experience of getting on board a conventional aircraft, with the associated -track record- of safe operation. I therefore feel that there should be half a dozen (at least!) full trips to space by the test programme before they start taking paying passengers - performed by pilots who accept the safety risks.
There will be a corresponding increase in the ticket price, to recoup the costs of extended testing.
Test programme on the Boeing-777 was a full year's worth and a multiplicity of scenarios.
Everything that I have heard on the Today Program makes me think that this was an accident waiting to happen. Experts have said that engines that powered this craft were extremely dangerous. Branson really needs to stop and take stock of his space program, before anybody else dies. He has put eye-watering amounts of money into this, along with all the daft celebrities
who have put down deposits.
who have put down deposits.
Unfortunately, Mikey, what's chiselled onto the internet stays on the internet.
Your Saturday morning post was evidently made before Branson came on TV to announce that it was NOT the engines, or the new fuel but premature deployment of control surfaces meant for the unpowered descent stage not the full-power climb.
Likewise, there are parts of conventional aircraft which would be damaged beyond use if deployed at cruising speed (landing gear, flaps, thrust reversers) and their are no fail-safes beyond the pilots' training not to pull the lever at the inappropriate time.
It is possible that force of habit from some other aircraft type meant that his hand went to a particular, familiar, position ("muscle memory") for an action he wanted to carry out and the fateful lever is what his hand landed on.
There is also the possibility that he was suffering oxygen deprivation, severely impairing both his judgement and his hand-eye coordination. Or the opposite - oxygen narcosis.
The investigation could take months. Watch this space. (pun not intended)
Your Saturday morning post was evidently made before Branson came on TV to announce that it was NOT the engines, or the new fuel but premature deployment of control surfaces meant for the unpowered descent stage not the full-power climb.
Likewise, there are parts of conventional aircraft which would be damaged beyond use if deployed at cruising speed (landing gear, flaps, thrust reversers) and their are no fail-safes beyond the pilots' training not to pull the lever at the inappropriate time.
It is possible that force of habit from some other aircraft type meant that his hand went to a particular, familiar, position ("muscle memory") for an action he wanted to carry out and the fateful lever is what his hand landed on.
There is also the possibility that he was suffering oxygen deprivation, severely impairing both his judgement and his hand-eye coordination. Or the opposite - oxygen narcosis.
The investigation could take months. Watch this space. (pun not intended)
-- answer removed --
@divebuddy
and what was the frequency of transatlantic ship losses when the Americas were being colonised? (sadly paralleled by the Mediterranean at the moment)
@237SJ
It's frustrating the way the story develops incrementally, like that. It's best to shut up and await the full accident report rather than revise one's opinion every time new detail emerges. The media love it because they get paid many times over for the same story, with a different piece of speculation on each re-run.
and what was the frequency of transatlantic ship losses when the Americas were being colonised? (sadly paralleled by the Mediterranean at the moment)
@237SJ
It's frustrating the way the story develops incrementally, like that. It's best to shut up and await the full accident report rather than revise one's opinion every time new detail emerges. The media love it because they get paid many times over for the same story, with a different piece of speculation on each re-run.
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