
Virgin Galactic Is Rattled, but Undeterred, by Deadly Space Plane Crash - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/science/space/virgin-galactic-is-rattled-by-crash-but-undeterred.html?ref=science&_r=0
======
rodgerd
That's a much friendlier puff piece that some others:

"It also emerged that three senior Virgin Galactic executives - the vice-
president in charge of propulsion, the vice-president in charge of safety, and
the chief aerodynamics engineer - had all quit the company in recent months."

"The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that Sir Richard's company, as well as US
authorities, were warned about safety issues on numerous occasions, as long
ago as 2007 when three engineers died in an explosion during testing of a
rocket engine on the ground."

"Tomasso Sgobba, executive director of IAASS and the former head of safety at
the European Space Agency, said that Virgin Galactic had refused to share
information with industry experts outside the company and declined to have its
rocket design peer-reviewed. Representatives of Virgin Galactic had refused to
come to IAASS meetings, he said."

There's heaps more.

[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/richard-
bransons-v...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/richard-bransons-
virgin-galactic-accused-of-ignoring-warnings-that-spaceship-was-unsafe-to-
fly-20141102-11fmg2.html)

~~~
pulkitpulkit
Think we have to differentiate between using these as signals of bad practice
or process and using them as scapegoats or excuses in hindsight. Once
something goes wrong, it's really easy to create a case for guilt by using
many small, unrelated, eventually inconsequential pieces of evidence - often
greater than the sum of the parts and I feel this can be really unfair.

~~~
krisoft
It really rubs me the wrong way that you seemingly refer to the previous test
related death of 3 people as a "small" incident. I'm sure that's not what you
intended to write. Maybe what you say is that it's unrelated, therefore "has a
small relevance" now. Even then I would argue that evidence of blatant
disregard of safety protocols in the past is a relevant piece of the puzzle.

But declaring it a small incident? I would not.

~~~
pulkitpulkit
Apologies: don't mean to imply that deaths are a "small incident" or that they
can be forgiven. My point is not about whether they are or aren't guilty of
malpractice or poor protocols, but that a thorough investigation should be
used to determine that, not stringing together a series of events that make it
easy for any passive reader to discredit the organisation.

tl, dr: we shouldn't pass judgement based on this article.

------
InclinedPlane
Here's a much more hard hitting article:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11203634/Branson-
spaceship-explosion-The-missed-warnings.html)

It's tempting as a space enthusiast to see criticism of Virgin Galactic and
Scaled's operations as attacks against spaceflight or commercial space
activities or the space tourism business in general. But people should not let
their enthusiasm carry them to far into ignoring the very real problems at VG
and Scaled.

They have unquestionably taken a lax attitude toward security, as demonstrated
most abundantly by the previous fatal accident at Scaled/VG which took 3 lives
during a test that should have not injured a single person if they had been
following standard safety practices. Moreover, they've consistently turned a
deaf ear on criticisms of their engine design and its safety, criticisms which
now appear to have been quite well founded.

Yes sometimes rockets are tricky. Sometimes bad things happen to otherwise
good designs. That's the nature of probability. But bad things happen to bad
designs too, and we should be sensitive to those circumstances.

~~~
7952
Beyond issues with the engine I wonder if people underestimate the risk of the
actual concept. It seems very complicated. Flying at high speed in the
atmosphere is a serious undertaking even without a rocket motor. However
advanced aeronautics may be the atmosphere is still a very hostile
environment.

~~~
InclinedPlane
If they had a rocketplane that had a reasonable rocket motor in it that would
enable them to do quick turnarounds by simply refueling, doing a little bit of
inspection, and reflying, then it might be possible to validate the idea
through an extensive test flight program, just as we've done with airplanes.
Put in a hundred or so test flights exploring the flight envelope and it would
be possible to gain some confidence in the system.

With the design that Virgin Galactic / Scaled have now I don't see that as a
reasonable possibility, and I don't think it is a safe system (largely due to
the rocket, the airframe might be a perfectly fine design).

------
spikels
Branson and the Vigin team are absolutely brilliant at PR. All day the top
headlines on Google News have been about his "determination" to "find the
cause of the crash" and "move forward" with little reflection on how big a
screw up this was.

This (along with good HR) has been the secret to Virgin's success in what are
basicly commodity businesses (retail, music, telecom, airlines). The free
advertising and friendly governments (also PR targets) are a big advantage
against competitors. Very little innovation required. However it is of limited
value in a business requiring overcoming multiple technical challenges.

The cheap spaceports and celebrity endorsements are still quite valuable. They
just need a partner that could actually make it fly but apparently these are
in short supply. Perhaps only SpaceX?

~~~
justincormack
Not quite all, the tone has shifted "Space dream in doubt after crash"
[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/01/sir-
richard-b...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/01/sir-richard-
branson-space-tourism-project-doubt)

~~~
k-mcgrady
Yeh, they really twisted what he said. Here is a direct quote from Branson in
the same article:

“And once we find out what went wrong, if we can overcome it, we will make
absolutely certain that the dream lives on.”

In other words unless there is a flaw in the design that makes it financially
unviable to continue they will solve the problem and push on.

~~~
lutorm
"... if we can overcome it" sounds like doubt to me. Maybe less doubt than
what the article implied, but I don't think it's that different.

------
austinz
This article (which was posted to HN yesterday but failed to gain traction)
discusses the history of the SpaceShipTwo engine in significant detail. It's a
worthy follow-up read.

[http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/10/30/apollo-ansari-
hobblin...](http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/10/30/apollo-ansari-hobbling-
effects-giant-leaps/)

~~~
neurotech1
Doug Messier (Parabolic Arc) is known for his bias against Virgin Galactic.

I thought his comments about Kevin Mickey (President of Scaled Composites) not
wanting to stick around for questions yesterday were way out of line.

------
derekp7
I was curious what the ultimate goal of Virgin Galactic, and the other sub-
orbital space companies are. Since they are sub-orbital, they can't really
take anyone to what I would consider "space" \-- you have this big rubber band
(gravity) attached to you that immediately starts pulling you back home. So is
the idea just so passengers could say they've "been to space" (really, just
reached a height high enough to be in a super thin atmosphere)? Or is the idea
that by going high enough that you get a few minutes of free fall, to give
passengers a glimpse of what being in space is like?

Now I realize that the early Mercury program was sub-orbital too, but that was
gaining knowledge and practice prior to developing Mach 25 (orbital)
technology. Is that also the goal of Virgin Galactic, to use the current
design as a stepping stone?

~~~
lutorm
There is no connection between being _in space_ and being _in orbit_. You can
be really far out in space without being in orbit (or rather, you are in an
orbit that intersects the Earth's surface.) You are no less "in space" than
the ISS crew just because you are only there for a few minutes.

~~~
derekp7
I agree with that, but my point was that it doesn't seem very valuable to go
"to space" when you can't stay -- kind of like how flying across the country,
and flying over Nevada is different than "going to Vegas". So to me, the fact
that they reach space really isn't the selling point, it is the fact that it
is a thrill ride which lasts for however many minutes (more in line with a
super roller coaster ride, or a step up from one of those parabolic curve
plane flights).

------
mbbau2
Serious question: why do people care about this?

~~~
krisoft
I don't know why people care, but I can tell you why I care. I believe that
becoming a multi-planetary specie is a worthy goal. I don't see if making rich
people fly high for bragging points is a good step towards that goal. Maybe it
is, maybe it's not. But it is similar enough goal that laypeople might
confound them.

So what I see is that they have a less ambitious goal. Even if they are 100%
successful it won't give us a fundamentally new capability. The project is
seemingly mismanaged, and they have a terrible safety record. Further more
events like this might alter the perception of 'space tourism', affecting the
business prospects of other respectable organizations.

