Space Ship Two down near Mojave

[gotWXdagain]

Doesn't look good.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/vi...aceshiptwo-crashes-during-flight-test-n238376

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

http://www.cnn.com/

Breaking news. And CNN's first go-to guy is Les Abend! I guess he convinced them a 777 is like a spaceship.

 

[ozziecat35]

whoa, thoughts are with the crew.

 

[derg]

One person reported dead, other injured.

 

[etflies]

Not a good week for aviation. Thoughts for the crew and those affected by all of these incidents this week.

 

[Seggy]

I can't say I'm shocked by this. It was only a matter of time before this happened. Space flight has a horrific safety record.

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

I can't say I'm shocked by this. It was only a matter of time before this happened. Space flight has a horrific safety record.

And scheduled air carrier service never had a horrific safety record....

 

[nagylyk]

ya, this has been a bad week. so sad.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

I can't say I'm shocked by this. It was only a matter of time before this happened. Space flight has a horrific safety record.

If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis, only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men.

-V.A. "Gus" Grissom.

We've more or less figured out how to stop dying in airplanes, but spaceflight is an entirely different set of hazards. I think it's pretty remarkable that there were only three crewmember fatalities in the Apollo program. They certainly came close to having 3 more on #13. (The Space Shuttle safety record, however, is not to be envied, especially considering the serious organizational failures that led to the loss of those vehicles.)

 

[ppragman]

I can't say I'm shocked by this. It was only a matter of time before this happened. Space flight has a horrific safety record.

What is your solution to this?

 

[Joshwa]

Did they announce who was crewing which vehicles before the flight? I have some worried friends who work at Boscombe Down over here who are waiting for any news.

 

[Acrofox]

What is your solution to this?

Reduce risk for status-quo; accept risk for advancement.

-Fox

 

[BobDDuck]

What is your solution to this?

I know that was directed at @Seggy but I'll answer it.

Time.
Acceptance that there will be accidents but a willingness to learn from those in an attempt to prevent them from happening in the future.
Money.
And more time.

Keep in mind, despite the fact that the space program has been around for 50+ years now, it wasn't advanced nearly as rapidly (with the exception of the moon shot days) as aviation was. If you go back and look at the technology advances in space flight compared to aviation and compare them, we are still in the 1940s and 1950s of aviation, were planes were falling out of the sky left and right. We can and will do better, but we need to accelerate the pace of space technology and travel, and until we do, things like this will happen.

 

[ppragman]

Reduce risk for status-quo; accept risk for advancement.

-Fox

That's what I mean - I mean, honestly, we don't really know what we don't know about running rockets around, we know they're chronically unreliable and explosion prone, however it could be said that early airplanes were wildly unreliable and prone to structural failure...so yeah, I don't know what the solution is other than more practice to figure out what the problem is.

 

[Ajax]

Space and space travel absolutely mesmerize me, at the same time the thought of doing it terrifies me

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Tragedy. When our government lacked the vision to reach further, companies like Virgin, Orbital Sciences, and Space X took up the mantle and inspired a generation of kids to study science and engineering. Let's hope for their sake that they don't slow down.

 

[MikeD]

Time.
Acceptance that there will be accidents but a willingness to learn from those in an attempt to prevent them from happening in the future.
Money.
And more time.
.

"No bucks, no Buck Rogers."

 

[mshunter]

Not a good week for aviation.

It's actually been a pretty standard week. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a few high profile crashes instead of the mite mundane old man crashing his Mooney or Bonanza.

 

[jskibo]

RIP for one, hope swift recovery for the other.


Sad..........

 

[Pilotdude3407]

How do you figure space flight has a horrific safety record? It flew roughly 135 flights over 30 years and had two spaceship losses totaling 14 crew members. Apollo launched 10 ships and lost no one and lost only 3 to a ground fire. Not to mention that Mercury and Gemini lost none. Apollo Soyuz was a success as well as the SkyLab missions. This is the US alone...not to mention Russia and Japan. For as unforgiving as space flight is, I would say it has a very good record.