Probe of space tourism rocket crash may take year

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

By BRIAN MELLEY

MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — Billionaire Richard Branson is promising to find out what caused the crash of his Virgin Galactic prototype space tourism rocket that killed a test pilot, but federal investigators are cautioning that it may take up to a year to learn exactly what went wrong.

The crash in the California desert almost certainly dashed Branson's goal of starting suborbital flight next spring, but the mogul said that while he remained committed to civilian space travel "we are not going to push on blindly."

In grim remarks at the Mojave Air and Space Port, where the craft known as SpaceShipTwo was under development, Branson gave no details of Friday's accident and deferred to the NTSB, whose team began its first day of investigation Saturday.

"Yesterday, we fell short," he said. "We'll now comprehensively assess the results of the crash and are determined to learn from this and move forward."

FULL story at link.



This three image combo photo shows the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket separating from the carrier aircraft, left, prior to it exploding in the air, right, during a test flight on Friday, Oct. 31, 2014. The Virgin Galactic rocket that exploded during a test flight, killed a pilot aboard and seriously injured another while scattering wreckage in Southern California's Mojave Desert, witnesses and officials said. (AP Photo/Kenneth Brown)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141102/us--space_tourism-2fbbeae2c2.html

[Helen Borg]

1. I assume real time data from all systems

Was being sent back a monitoring station... Probably they'll be able to see something anomalous beforenit blew up, but it may take time to figure out exactly what went wrong...

[daleo]

2. Space tourism will probably be like Mount Everest climbing tourism

Which is to say, an expensive niche business, with a one or two percent fatality rate. It is hard to say if there are enough rich people willing to take such a risk, to make it a viable business.

[FLPanhandle]

3. If I had the money, I'd go

I think there is a market and once a few commercial flights are successful, then more people will be willing to sign up.

Alas, I'll never have that much disposable income.

[daleo]

4. I might go too, if I had that kind of dough

But chances of that are not good.