Virgin Galactic’s dreams of sending passengers into space as early as 2015 came crashing down into the Mojave Desert with remnants of SpaceShipTwo on Friday, an accident that caused the death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury.
Virgin Galactic and its founder, Sir Richard Branson, have pioneered the space tourism industry for the better part of a decade, building a large headquarters in New Mexico and tirelessly working to become firsts.
Still, it’s a new frontier that makes for risky business, as Friday’s crash proved. In a statement released by Virgin Galactic, safety is the No. 1 priority, so the investigation begins as to what caused the demise of SpaceShipTwo.
The plane apparently broke apart in midair, and while the exact cause of the accident remains unclear, the National Transportation Safety Board said the feathering mechanism could have deployed prematurely. Feathering is a technique that uses very little air to cause more drag and slow the spacecraft.
While feathering is supposed to be deployed when the spacecraft reaches Mach 1.4 (about 1.4 times the speed of sound) videos from the craft show the mechanism to have deployed at Mach 1.
According to David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute in Houston, the crash is a major blow to plans to send $250,000-ticket holders into space by 2015, as the investigation of the incident could take up to a year. Safety and procedure of flights into space will be in the public eye, and must have a solid footing before passengers get on board.
GUEST
David Alexander, director, Rice Space Institute
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