/sci/ - Science & Math

>>6847505
bad week for spaceflight

>>6847513
Yeah, spaceflight is a tricky buisness.
Wonder if virgin can recover from this...

Oh shit, I thought this was a troll thread.

Sad, but not too surprising. They've lost people working on those engines before. They didn't really know what they were doing.

I accidentally the whole spaceshiptwo

>>6847505
USA cannot into space.

>>6847505
Fucking PR hacks. This is more than an 'anomaly'.

>>6847505
You know, this might actually doom VG. They will die a slow death, but it's only a matter of time.

LOL @ all those idiots who bought the tickets for the first flight…

Space tourism was a retarded idea from the start.
This is the final nail in the coffin.

>>6847556
pretty sure they can spare the money

>>6847547
Just an anomaly. Nothing to worry about.

>>6847563

I imagine people saying something exactly like this after the first commercial airliner crash

>air travel was a retarded idea from the start, this is the final nail in the coffin

>>6847574

>>6847583
Air travel had actual uses, unlike suborbital spaceplanes.

First flight with a new fuel mixture. No mention if it had been tested with static ground engine firings first.

/v/ can't into space

THIS is what happens when turbocapitalism rules the World.

Mankind's process is slowed down, just as the same with Communism.
Time to kill Turbocapitalism, which is way harder to kill than Communism though.
I have the fear that by that time it is too late.

>1969 landing on the moon
>2014 fail to build a proper space shuttle

OH BOY

> Is that a man?
You're goddamn right it is.

Condolences to the pilots and their families. I have faith that Scaled will learn and recover from this. As we've all been reminded this week, some things really *are* rocket science.

Looks like Poland still cannot into space

>>6847551
It's not necessarily the end of VG (Branson has a lot of money), but I think it's the end of their use of the hybrid rocket motor. If they continue, it will be with a liquid-fuelled engine.

They tried to sell the idea that a hybrid rocket motor combined the best points of liquid-fuel engines and solid-fuel motors, but really, it combines their worst points, when applied to a passenger vehicle.

A liquid-fuel engines have small combustion chambers, far from the payload. They can be tested over and over on the ground, and proven very reliable (especially when you're not going to orbit, so it's not nearly as mass-sensitive). And if they do blow up, it's probably not going to destroy the passenger compartment, and may even leave the wings intact.

A nitrous/plastic hybrid motor has a big, high-pressure tank of nitrous oxide, which can detonate if set off, completely destroying the vehicle. The combustion chamber is huge, so if it blows up that'll be a huge explosion. It may take out the passenger compartment, it's almost certainly taking out the wings, and it's very possibly setting off the nitrous oxide tank. It's refuelled by what is essentially a manufacturing process rather than merely filling a tank, so it can work differently every time you use it and fail in surprising ways.

XCOR is doing this right. VG's approach is wrong. But both are being irresponsible by not setting up for unmanned test flights.

The hybrid wasn't a bad approach in the race to win the X Prize, but it wasn't suitable for a scaled-up commercial passenger vehicle.

Question: how did someone survive this? Even if they die later, how did they survive the initial impact?

>>6847627
They both had parachutes, one bailed out in time.

>>6847628

pussy

How did the other guy even survive?

>>6847574
>a virgin crashing and burning
story of my life

>>6847634
Unconfirmed reports that the survivor has "catastrophic" injuries. Maybe lost some limbs or something.

>>6847637
Source?

>>6847604
You're an idiot

NASA FUCKING UP AGAIN, MY FUCKING SIDES

THE AGE OF GOVERNMENT RUN SPACE PROGRAMS IS OFFICIALLY OVER. IT'S TIME FOR BASED ELON TO TAKE OVER

SPACE X IS THE FUTURE

FUCK NASA

FUCK THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

>>6847645
This has.. nothing to do with NASA.

>>6847645
>trying this hard

>>6847617
I agree with everything you said. Also, don't forget they already killed three in a NOX handling accident on the ground.

FYI, space accidents seem to come in threes... And the Chinese translunar experiment is scheduled to reenter in a few hours...

>>6847649
>killed three in a NOX handling accident on the ground.
what?

>>6847645

>>6847645
>b8

So this... is the power... of private spaceflight

>>6847650

2. 2 workers were killed in a previous accident.

I'd say Bezos' systems is theorectically better, a vertical takeoff and landing rocket with a an escape system for the crew compartment. Both VG and Lynx are without escape systems it appears.

Branson fucked up, in that if he wanted a suborbital tourist program, he should have considered a wider solution base first instead of being swayed by the spectacle of one group.

>>6847574

"Spaceship two is a loss"

well im fucking glad they clarified that. because you cant quite tell from that mangled wreck in the picture

>>6847640
Somebody posting in comments on SpaceflightNow.com

>>6847660
The guardian says 'major injuries'.

>>6847593
of course it fucking had

you think they put humans in a vehicle with untested rocket configurations?

i worked next door to Scaled this spring, walked by their hangar on my wau to lunch daily

these operations are incredibly fucking tight, checklisted, and pre-tested. something went unbelievably balls-out WRONG here.

>>6847658
Spaceflight business is filled with understatements.

>>6847658
bit of duct tape and bondo and it's as good as new!

>>6847666
Duct tape? No need for that! Just a new paint job and good as new!

>>6847505
Any video of the explosion?

>>6847670
Virgin usually records all of their flights but is unlikely they will release it publicly, PR disaster.

The videos will probably be turned over to the FAA for investigation.

>>6847673
I bet you we'll be seeing that footage on Smithsonian's Air Disasters in a few years.

>>6847518
i bet they don't. the odds seem pretty long for two rocket failures in one week. it sounds like fuckery to me.

>>6847547
bill nye? really?

>>6847543

Virgin is British

>>6847574
for the cost of a ticket - that nigger needs ejector seats

>>6847645
has south africa evar been to spayce?

Huh. Looks like XCOR might actually be first to suborbital passenger flight. I don't think ANYONE predicted that back when they started.

NASA ROCKETS EXPLODING
SPACESHIPS EXPLODING
EBOLA RUNNING WILD
THE END IS NIGH

>>6847691
but the company that does the rockets is in california

>>6847698
:startpanicking:

>>6847653

You have to consider how many catastrophes the US and USSR have suffered since the dawn of space exploration.

Launching a vessel from the grasp of a whole fucking planet is pretty fucking hard and has a lot of forces going against it.

>>6847698
you mean the end is nye

Why is spaceflight so dangerous?

Shouldn't it just be pointing a craft up and hitting the jets until you're far enough?

>>6847657

Oh, my bad, I was misremembering, 3 people were indeed killed.

>>6847702
you are basically riding a chemical explosion. i hope they figure out a better way to get to space.

>>6847705
As long as we use controlled explosions and not anti-gravity or some other more safe method we're kinda living on the edge.

>>6847705
>Jets

Nope, it's a rocket, a controlled explosion

>>6847696
I (>>6847664) may or may not have worked there. It looks a bit ragtag (fucking rotary rocket, right?), but those are the most brilliant fucking engineers I have ever met.

That being said, Scaled's operation is way tighter, and this still happened to them

>>6847585
>virgin kills again

>>6847718
do the russians have a better record than we do for getting into and out of space safely.

>>6847664
>something went unbelievably balls-out WRONG here.

the odds seem pretty long for two rocket failures in a week. i wonder if there is some sort of sabotage happening.

>>6847711
How do aliens do it so easily?

>>6847718
I'm actually the son of one of the engineers there.

>>6847718
XCOR's liquid engine tech is way more reliable, though. Means you can actually test the engines repeatedly instead of having to fabricate a new solid fuel core each time.

They've been running tests for a hell of a long time and they haven't had an engine blow up yet, or even do something worrying.

>>6847735
whats his nickname

>>6847732
do you remember he movie explorers? aliens use 80s computers to fly. 80s computers are way moar safe.

>>6847739
Telling you so would be sufficient to narrow down my True Name.

It's not one of the Ms, though.

>>6847743
im trying to think of the engineers not named mike but old enough to have sons. Is it Ron? or one of the big three

>>6847658
That was Virgin Enterprise. They have another SpaceshipTwo Virgin Voyager.

They should do unmanned test first. I'm sure unman is easier to do now in 2014 and it's likely cheaper.

>>6847746
One of those four, yes.

>>6847749
And I know being cagey like this means I can't actually verify that I'm actually who I say I am, but I just think revealing my real name or sufficient information to work out my real name on 4chan is a Really Bad Idea.

I'm weirded out that when I woke up this morning I felt an overwhelming urge to watch the Venture Brothers "Major Tom" clip, then this happens...

>>>/x/

>>6847759
There is no tomorrow
Cause it is doomsday
And there are no days after that
Cause that is what doomsday is!

>>6847757
i am his dad. my name is frank. i am a plumber. this kid is a pathological liar.

>>6847762
>>6847757
samefag

>>6847735
>son
No boys allowed on /sci/, silly.

>>6847766
Well, the son of an engineer is almost the same thing as being an engineer, and being an engineer and sucking cock is almost the same thing as being a girl, so it's close enough.

>>6847749
They're all bros.
I worked literally two feet from ron, across a cubicle wall. Awesome guy, does crazy good work
Doug is brilliant, but is the closest ive ever seen to an autistic savant; he just floats through a room looking straight ahead. also a great guy
Dan scares the shit out of me, and I get the feeling he didnt like me even though i tried really hard to earn his approval. Great problem solver. his full-leather motorcycle outfit is hysterical. great hair.
jeff is a goddamn genius. worked side by side with him on some stuff, i think he liked me. he has every damn nut and bolt of that vehicle in his head.

>>6847718
>It looks a bit ragtag (fucking rotary rocket, right?), but those are the most brilliant fucking engineers I have ever met.
From space helicopter to rocket kitplane is a step up the sanity scale, but when they expected to have fully developed their vehicle within in two years, and they haven't so much as built it after six years, they're drifting back into tall helicopter territory.

>>6847769
Rotary Rocket was fucking Wile-E-Coyote shit, yeah.

It's almost built at this point, though. They finally got the cockpit, strakes, and LOX tank fabricated despite delays, and they're at the actually-putting-the-composite-on stage of construction. I'd be extremely surprised if another year passed before test flights.

>you were born early enough to imagine all the amazing shit in the future but too early to actually enjoy it

thanks for nothing mom and dad

>>6847769
>havent so much as built it
the cockpit has been integrated to the fuselage, this is publicly available i formation. and that was months ago. first flight by years end.

>>6847767
how old were you when frank first touched your pee pee?

Army test flight of wright flyer 2, guy dies. Hurr air travel will never happen now!

>>6847778

>Test flight
>Guy dies
>Army orders a whole fucking bunch

God bless those who dare to dream

>one or two deaths
>end of private spaceflight

>Doctors Without Boardrers getting sick all over the place
>noone proclaiming the end of charitable medicine

>>6847772
There's really nothing wrong with a helicopter air launch (for a tiny payload vehicle), or a helicopter landing for a reusable vehicle, but with a reusable helicopter SSTO, there's just too many things that have to go perfectly.

Then they scaled it up basically to the absolute optimistic limit of the design, to the "two men and a ham sandwich" payload capacity, instead of proving the concept with something small and inexpensive and toward the low end of what the design was suitable for that could just launch the ham sandwich.

That was just not realistic thinking. And that sort of hubris is still there with XCOR going straight to manned spaceflight, without doing so much as a suborbital sounding rocket together as a team first.

The tall helicopter was comedy. The rocket kitplane is likely to end in tragedy.

Too early to say, but Scaled Composites had the propellant tank blow up in a test in '07, tragic accident, killed a few good engineers.

Cause was decomposition of the nitrous tank (pretty explosive stuff). Could this be the kind of 'inflight anomaly' that downed her?

>>6847792
The difference is that when someone dies while working to save others it is seen as an acceptable loss.

In the old days of spaceflight, deaths were to be expected, but not anymore.
Nowadays a single death, in the eyes of many, is more than enough reason to cancel any funding and support for a program.

How did we even get to the moon in the first place.

We can't even put a man in orbit anymore.

>>6847809
Depends what you mean by 'we'.

Lol the comments in media and social networks amaze me. Let's skip the 60% that end in bullshit about religion and terrorism, but the rest is sad when they are talking about failure in this case and demand to abolish such endeavours. Seriously, this is performance at the highest level humanity has to offer, naturally the margin for error is so tiny that everything can lead to death. I hope they won't stop the project because of this. It would be a disgrace to the human nature and to the dead pilot.

>>6847808
The difference is that they were only going to fly this thing a couple of times before loading it up with paying customers for a pointless thrill ride.

They're selling tickets to the general public. This shouldn't be an unsafe activity.

>>6847809
Note that SpaceShipTwo was only supposed to be a suborbital vehicle anyway. They were just going to pop up to a high altitude, then coast back down.

>>6847820
>a couple of times
>pointless thrill ride
>general public

>>6847809

>first moon landing was almost 50 years ago
>50 years

>>6847809
>How did we even get to the moon in the first place.
With a shitload of money and manhours, and a disregard for human safety wherever time or efficiency could be saved.

From Ars Technica comments (just some random dude), generally knows what he's talking about though:

>The problem is that Scaled knows airframes, but they don't know rocket engines. At the beginning of the SS2 program, Burt Rutan made the assumption that the engine would be proportionately scaled up from the SS1 engine and then designed the SS2 airframe around the assumed engine.
>The trouble was, the engine didn't scale so easily. It was barely stable at SS1 dimensions, and when it was scaled up, the thrust oscillations and vibration levels were way too violent for controlled flight. The engine contractor (SNC) had to completely redesign the engine with a different fuel compound and addition helium and methane injection systems necessary to keep the engine stable, particularly during ignition and cutoff.
>The engine redesign forced an airframe redesign. The central engine bay was reconfigured, and the wing cross-section had to be made significantly thicker to accommodate tanks for the new injection systems. Even still, the new engine wasn't very stable. A redesigned engine exploded on the test stand earlier this year due to a hard start. Today's failure also looked like a hard start incident.
>Bottom line: Nobody on this project had the appropriate level of expertise in rocket propulsion systems. They picked a propulsion system that is simple to understand in concept but extremely tricky to master in practice. Lacking the competency to pursue a more conventional liquid rocket engine, they stuck with the hybrid approach. But by painting themselves into a corner with the airframe design, they were unable to experiment with various engine configurations in order to maximize stability. They didn't understand that a hybrid can only be perfected by trial and error and that they needed to design the airframe around whatever engine configuration happened to work.
>Source: parabolicarc.com

>>6847829
XCOR does keep offering to build them an engine, but they keep saying "no."

>>6847737
I've always thought that XCOR and Scaled should get together on a design. XCOR really knows their rocket motors, and Scaled really knows their airframes.

>>6847835
This has not escaped XCOR's notice. We've asked more than once if they want any help with their engine. Jeff wants a functioning space industry with competitors WAY more than he wants XCOR to be first.

>>6847839
one of the reasons i love jeff so much

looks like a fucking linebacker, but he's just really into robert heinlein and optimistic space stuff

>>6847843
He's also got the lyrics to Firefly's opening theme posted up on his office wall.

(He sings it every time he watches)

>>6847846
oh man that's precious

Why don't Google, Apple, Musk and a bunch of other billionaires just build a space elevator already.
Just the tourism alone would pay off for it in no time.

>>6847854
Because space elevators are completely retarded and would never be practical to build.

>>6847862
>>6847854
They'd also actually use a lot more energy than a reusable chemical rocket would. Space elevators are too long to have power cables in the elevator cable, so you have to transmit power to the climber by microwave.

Efficiently reusable chemical rockets are a good technology. We just have to develop them.

>>6847829
>Hard start

Jesus Christ. They were generally thought to be a problem that afflicted liquid propellant engines, as it can only occur if the oxidizer is in liquid phase in the chamber. For hybrids, you must ensure the oxidizer is never in liquid phase in the chamber.

I've worked on hybrids, and if they designed the injector so that liquid nitrous was in the chamber, then that saddens me a great deal. This should *never* be allowed to happen, and can be avoided with a large enough pressure drop accross the injector (enough to ensure the nitrous is vapourized).

This kind of problem has plagued amateurs (pacific rocket society had a big bang from a hard start) and professionals (in the UK, if memory serves.)

Unfortunately, for many designs to get the high pressure drop means lowering the chamber pressure and therefore the thrust. I hope raising the chamber pressure wasn't seen as a sensible trade-off in this case, and the problem was entirely unforeseen instead.

RIP based spaceship pilot. I hope this project continues in earnest in a suitably redesigned form so you do not die in vain.

>>6847826
That's the one great OJ Simpson movie. OJ as a hero astronaut fighting a faked Mars landing coverup? Classic.

>>6847768
are these all airframe engineers, or were any of them working on the new hybrid engine that exploded?

>>6847892
Different company; he's talking about XCOR, which is running all liquid engines.

They've got the opposite problems to Scaled - they're underfunded, and while they're brilliant at rocket engines, all their problems have been in designing and building the airframe.

>>6847892
these are engineers at XCOR aerospace, located next door to Scaled Composites. Scaled is the one who built the exploding craft

Ron is control systems
Dan DeLong is chief design engineer
Doug Jones is chief propulsion engineer
Jeff Greason is CEO, but is an engineer as well.

>>6847898
whoopsie, left my PSN on there, that's for dragons dogma general

>>6847897
>underfunded
i mean, they aren't having money thrown at them like Scaled, but they are pretty healthy as far as funding goes.

>>6847898
And, being right next door, they also freaked the fuck out when SS2 blew up. We got a call from Dad. He was semi-coherent.

>>6847901
A couple years ago, Jeff actually gave up his salary, and everyone else took half pay, because there was literally serious concern over keeping the doors open beyond the next few months. This continued for over a year.

They're pretty well funded NOW, but this has not been a permanent condition.

>>6847898
oops, sorry about that. Nothing but respect for XCOR, can't wait to see the Lynx fly!

I forget, was XCOR the group that built an experimental hydrolox engine, and tested it in a motorcycle by doing a cross country trip?

>>6847906
Aye.

>>6847904
The story about what happened when rotary rocket shut down and all the engineers stuck around made me choke up. those guys fucking care about this shit.

>>6847906
damn straight. they love their motorcycles.

>>6847906
Well, specifically they were testing the pistons.

One of XCOR's big innovations is the ability to use piston pumps to move fuel around instead of turbopumps. They're more reliable, and more importantly, cheaper - because there's already a lot of work and machining experience done in piston pumps.

Like 99% of XCOR's innovations have come from "We don't have Richard Branson funding us. How can we do this cheap and fast without it sucking?"

You all are so desperate to leave the earth
Why not focus on staying here forever?

>>6847915
because it's painfully clear that people just cannot cooperate enough for the global population to live sustainably. our monkey brains are too greedy and lack the selflesness and foresight to change our lifestyles.

>>6847918

We'll bring that along into space though, in more constrained environments.

>>6847913
I love XCOR's rocket motor engineering. I wish I had a few million to throw your way.

Has XCOR tried to get money from Steve Jurvetson's venture capital firm? That guy's a serious rocket junkie and mega rich.

>>6847918

Humans are capable of improving themselves. Contrast Norwegian society today with Viking times society.

>>6847520
>They've lost people working on those engines before
Can you link us to an article about this?

>>6847915
Because why would we want to do that? Earth is finite and has limited resources. We could keep expanding at the current exponential rate for over a thousand years and not even strain the resources of the Solar System.

Plus, one of these days a meteor or a Carrington event or a plague or a nuclear war or something is going to smack our shit, and it'd be nice to not be dependent on Earth alone to live.

>>6847928
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipTwo#2007_test_explosion

Fuck I just heard the news, Really fucking sad
Dont know what will come of this

Aparantley there are images of the dead pilot,
Chris Bergin of Nasa spaceflight said he would ban anyone on the spot for posting them.

Could someone please post them?

NICE SPACESHIP FAGGOT

>>6847932

We're not capable of exploiting the solar system, nor is it an oasis for us and configured for easy exploitation.

Extra-Earth settlements may be even more dependent on Earth to survive.

Decades of fooling ourselves that our space program is relevant to those objectives has not brought us them.

Think they can convince NASA to add the names of the engineers and the pilot to the black wall?

>>6847926
>Arguing against yourself this hard.

>>6847948
You are incorrect, and also wrong.

>>6847902
hey son-bro, i made a guerilla mail if you want to talk, ill give you my name, don't need yours
tl0y5+18wze64ynjaao@guerrillamail.com

here's a photo i took from inside Dan DeLong's office

>>6847924
>Steve Jurvetson
sounds dutch. a crazy proportion of xcor's investors are dutch, so probably

>>6847928
Not that Anon, but here you go: http://www.knightsarrow.com/rockets/scaled-composites-accident/

Nitrous decomposition accident during fill test. Destructive stuff. Perhaps a similar process was responsible for today's reported disintegration, though best to wait for the NTSB report.

>>6847946
LOL

So what should VG do next, business wise?

>>6847973
Options:
1) refund tickets
2) declare bankruptcy

>>6847973
I don't think they can recover. Branson should probably quietly end it

>>6847953
Jurvetson's a good old American capitalist (though he trumpets his Estonian roots), and a pal of Elon, backing all his ventures. His photo blog is full of amateur rockets and insider views of cool companies (like him sitting in his Tesla model S #1, or sitting on top of General Fusion's prototype, or a vid of him walking in between the Merlin engines while a Falcon 9 is on the test stand).

>>6847915
Because the earth has a limited amount of matter and thus a limited maximum computing power.

>>6847973
Hide their assets in offshore banks and go off the grid.

>>6847973
Redesign their engines, continue on.

If they were real smart, they'd get someone like XCOR to build them an engine.

>>6847585

>>6847997
is that.... the pilot?

>>6848002

looks like just bent fuselage

>>6847952

Present your counter-arguments.

>>6847993
if they were smart they'd buy 50% of XCOR and fund their spaceplane

>>6847997
So did aliens do this too?

If they were smart, they wouldnt have killed a test pilot.

their design sucks, and they shouldve taken the capsule route Hard to kill someone in a capsule with a huge fucking abort system

>>6847703
BILL BILL BILL!

>>6847997
leave it to 4chan to turn heroic tragedy into tasteless humor

So, the second pilot is dead by now, right? How the fuck did he survive the explosion in the first place?

>>6848023
>heroic tragedy
What are you talking about?

>>6848027
Oh, I thought that was the dead pilot. I heard he was found still in his seat and the picture had leaked.

>>6848025
That white plume is the tankload of nitrous. Doesn't look like it decomposed or else the gas would be colourless, and there'd be more heat released.

Not healthy to be in proximity to that stuff.

>>6848030
One of the pilots is dead and he was found still strapped in his seat. There is no picture of him though.

What I meant was what part of it is heroic?
He's a paid pilot, for a private company. Nothing heroic about it.

XCOR still hasn't built anything that has actually worked in space yet.

The main products they've completed and put into use so far are:
1) sticking an unremarkable rocket in a tea cart, and
2) sticking an unremarkable rocket in an off-the-shelf kitplane.

The rest is studies, prototypes that have stayed on the ground, and "work in progress".

This is not a new company. They've been around for 15 years. That's a long time for a business to remain "promising".

I heard this was their only completed vehicle, with the second one still being a ways away from being finished.

If true, will VG survive this? Will Branson cut his losses and bail out?

>>6848039
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbtvFIEBJdA

yes, truly, they have made nothing

>>6848044

>I heard this was their only completed vehicle, with the second one still being a ways away from being finished.
The more pertinent problem is the reservation list.

>>6848030
I NEED THAT PICTURE!

>>6848053
virgin will probably fly customers at best 2017 and by then they will probably beat out by Spacex

Unless they can pull some serious strings I seriously doubt that they will pull this off

My Aunt is having a bit of a rough day. She works for Northrop and does a lot of stuff with Scaled.

She knew both pilots personally. Talked to them pretty much every morning for whatever project Scaled was working on (lol classified shit) with Northrop.

So, she's been down all day because of it.

It sucks, but I keep telling myself that with progress comes death. Many of the people who sailed out to discover the world never came back. Advancing space flight is no different I guess.

>>6848075
only a stupid asshole would say something like "the pilots aren't heroes, they were just doing a job to get paid"

come the fuck on, you think they don't realize the significance of what they're doing? they know that they could die; they're not doing it for a fucking paycheck. rip in peace dead hero spessman

>>6848075
any idea the name of the pilot?
I feel for your aunt though, someone should throw a party in the pilots honor

>>6848075

>It sucks, but I keep telling myself that with progress comes death. Many of the people who sailed out to discover the world never came back. Advancing space flight is no different I guess.
Indeed.

>>6848077
What the hell are you talking about? They are heros for what they were doing. Knowing the risks and wanting to advance space flight.
>>6848078
I didn't ask. Didn't feel it was appropriate. She did mention that one of the pilots left behind two little girls. Made me feel like shit when she said that.

I'm sure they'll do something for them. I should probably make the trip out to Mojave for that. It's only about an hour away. The guys are heroes and they deserve to be honored in my eyes.

>>6848047
>ground test of non-flight-weight, heat-sink-cooled prototype of what will be an unremarkable rocket engine even if developed to its final form
Your example of their extensive heritage of actual products used in space has overwhelmed me with its relevance.

>>6847809

Nazis.

No. Seriously. We stole all the Nazi missile scientists at the end of WWII and told them we'd forget all that ugly business if they shot our men to the moon.

>>6848089
dude I wish I honestly never asked, I'm gonna go cry now.

>>6848089
>They are heros for what they were doing. Knowing the risks and wanting to advance space flight.
that is exactly what i was saying

someone earlier in the thread was going on about how they were just doing it as a job for a private company

>>6848037
So risking your life in a new spaceship or aircraft is only heroic if you are being paid by a government?

>>6848089
>Knowing the risks and wanting to advance space flight.
Suborbital tourism does nothing to advance space flight, and doing something risky does not make you a hero.

>>6848098
Oh, okay. It just looked like you were attacking me for some reason

>>6848096
Yeah, I felt like shit after she said that. I hope those girls grow up in the knowledge that their Dad is a hero.

>>6848099
I'm not saying that would necessarily be heroic either.

Anons you shouldn't attempt to define what is heroic and what is not, for your own sakes. It can only come to autism. I speak from experience.

>>6848077
>come the fuck on, you think they don't realize the significance of what they're doing? they know that they could die; they're not doing it for a fucking paycheck.
This was going to be basically a glorified amusement park ride.

They might have been doing it for thrills or bragging rights. They might have been doing it for a paycheck. They wouldn't have been doing it because they were so deluded that they thought it was a great step forward for mankind.

This is just sad. Not a sad inevitability of a heroic endeavor, just a sad, avoidable workplace casualty.

>>6848102

>and doing something risky does not make you a hero.
There's a difference between doing something risky and doing something risky that could benefit the human race through new frontiers in science and technology and their fledgling practical applications.

Chuck Yeager oughta smack yer' shit.

>>6848071
>virgin will probably fly customers at best 2017 and by then they will probably beat out by Spacex
>Unless they can pull some serious strings I seriously doubt that they will pull this off
What this anon said. Virgin has been at this for 10 years now and has almost nothing to show for it, while SpaceX is on track to begin colonizing Mars in the next decade or two.

>>6848110
>that could benefit the human race through new frontiers in science and technology and their fledgling practical applications.

Like >>6848108 said, it's a glorified fucking amusement ride.

>>6847997

>>6848111
The price tag on a spacex launch is multiple orders of magnitude above anything virgin would even dare to ask. The serve completely different markets, and there's no directs competition between the two companies.

>>6848108

This was going to be basically a glorified amusement park ride.

They might have been doing it for thrills or bragging rights. They might have been doing it for a paycheck. They wouldn't have been doing it because they were so deluded that they thought it was a great step forward for mankind.

This is just sad. Not a sad inevitability of a heroic endeavor, just a sad, avoidable workplace casualty.

>Dismissive Victorian Gentleman

Come Watson, to my horse carriage. I must get home to paint my parlour with toxic green paint and cleanse my teeth with Radium.

>>6848113
Wow sempai your really kewl i wish i was as dark and cynic as you are

>>6848113
>>6848108
couple of real edgemasters in here

>>6848110
This is 2014. It was not remotely necessary to have a human pilot and copilot onboard.

And the hybrid motor should have been abandoned long ago.

>>6848122
Call me edgy but it's the truth.

There is literally no useful application for a suborbital spaceplane other than for joyrides.

>>6848124
Well, I can't speak for Virgin, but I know the reason XCOR's doing it is as R&D for an orbital spaceplane.

>>6848124
They've mentioned wanting to do point-to-point suborbital flights and launching small payloads into orbit. Those things are useful.

>>6848077
But is it necessary to have pilot at all? UAV is common and cheap.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/virgin-galactic-boondoggle

>>6848116
if they can reuse the first stage of their rocket it would subtract 75% of the cost of their launches making a 61 million$ rocket launch only 15 million but it gets better. If they can reuse the second stage, they turn a $61 million launch into only 5 million
divide 5 million by 7 and thats only around $700,000 per person.

>>6848130
>point-to-point suborbital flights
It would be more a hundred times more cost efficient just to bring back supersonic passenger jets.

>launching small payloads into orbit
Or you could just put them as secondary payloads on a falcon? Or use one of the many small launch vehicles currently being developed exactly for the purpose of launching tiny payloads.

>>6848131
Of course it wasn't necessary. It could easily have been RC, I think it's a fly-by-wire system anyway.

At the end of the day strapping a hybrid rocket motor to a kit plane and expecting it to go into space reliably is absurd.

>>6848123
>>6848131
fucking this Piloted spaceplanes are deathtraps, they do not have an abort mechanism, and they cant take the shit a capsule can take.

>>6848124
>"i have zero long-term vision," the post
>>6848135
>"i know better about an incredibly complex field than entire teams of engineers," the post

>>6848138
>I don't know enough to make a counter argument, so I'm just going to blindly side the the people who just blew up their spaceship and their test pilots

>>6848133
First of all, you're being rather optimistic about how cost effective reusing a first stage is. Right now we have no idea what kind of overheads spacex will have to face when they actually start refurbishing and flying used first stages. You only have to think back to the space shuttle era to realize that it might turn out to be a lot more expensive than you'd initially think. Secondly, a reusable second stage is many years away from now. After all of that, they'll still have to make up for their r&d cost, pay for the astronaut training, cover the cost of building and refurbishing the spacecraft etc.
It won't be that cheap anytime soon.

>>6848124

Once again drawing parallels to flight. Aircraft originally were just a hobby for rich gentlemen (sound familiar?) to construct their wacky steampunk flying machines and putter about the sky for no real purpose other than their personal amusement and setting time and distance records for dick swaying purposes (sound familiar?).

Even if you argue commercialized sub-orbital flight isn't a economical or practical alternative for transportation, it does hold valuable possibility for many other reasons such as a platform for conducting research at the most extreme borders of our atmosphere without actually going into outer space. The USAF/NASA is obviously testing their own experimental craft (such as the drone that recently completed its mission), but no harm arises from healthy competition.

>>6848142
of course it wont be cheap, but Its a hell of a lot better then a Dangerous hybrid motor system

>>6848135
>It would be more a hundred times more cost efficient just to bring back supersonic passenger jets.
Concorde was incredibly expensive, killed a bunch of people, and was way slower than what virgin could achieve.

>Or you could just put them as secondary payloads on a falcon?
Not when you want a specific orbit, and this could prove a cheap way of putting them there.

>>6847586
>Air travel had actual uses, unlike suborbital spaceplanes.
Like recreational travel?

>>6848144
>USAF/NASA is obviously testing their own experimental craft (such as the drone that recently completed its mission)
You mean the drone that is NOT a suborbital spaceplane?

>a platform for conducting research at the most extreme borders of our atmosphere without actually going into outer space
That's what sounding rockets are for.

>>6848145
If the engineers at virgin decide that a hybrid motor is too expensive, they'll opt for a different type of engine. They won't start flying customers before they make sure their spacecraft isn't going to explode.

>>6848146
>Concorde was incredibly expensive
Yeah, but nowhere near the cost of a suborbital flight.

>and was way slower than what virgin could achieve
You could have a fucking teleporter pad and it still wouldn't be practical if it cost you a billion dollars per use.

>>6848153
Stop being so silly please.

>>6848146
>Not when you want a specific orbit, and this could prove a cheap way of putting them there.
A small rocket would still be a much cheaper option.

Look at us shitpost, like we could run virgin better

>>6848165
i'm sure a bunch of people here are running "on" virgin though

>ctrl+f "just"
>32 results
you think you can "just" do any of your hairbrained fucking suggestions? you think you're more clever than these people?
you're shitposting on 4chan. you aren't.
they have already thought of your helpful "suggestions"

>>6848166
yep I know I am

>>6848168
34 now :^)

>>6848165

I could handpick a group of individuals including myself who could better helm NASA and provide superior guidance to many a space firm or space firm investor.

>>6848117
>image of pioneering test flight
This isn't pioneering. This is retreading, ineptly.

People have been going to orbit for half a century already. This vehicle was only designed for suborbital flight, and not for ones that are long enough to be useful. It is strictly a thrill-ride.

This isn't even on a development path toward orbital flight. This is a passenger plane intimately integrated with a high-thrust, low-Isp booster rocket. Solving the challenges involved in this until it's reliable enough for civilian randoms to ride on is simply not a meaningful contribution toward affordable orbital spaceflight.

You know what the guy who actually pushed SpaceShipOne to happen, instead of buying in after it was almost done (as Branson did), is doing? First hint: it's not SpaceShipTwo. Second hint: pic related.

This is what REAL progress in spaceflight looks like. He's starting by scaling up the carrier aircraft, because you need a bigger rocket to take a manned craft to orbit. Then he's got two stages to orbit, because that's what works. And then the actual spacecraft sits on top of the upper stage. It's a totally separate thing, and the upper stage can blow up, and the spacecraft with the people in it is still fine.

He actually hasn't even settled on a spacecraft, because he knows that going to orbit is the hard part, this image is from the spacecraft makers, who made it to try and sell him on using their spacecraft with his rocket. Step one is to get the giant aircraft working. Step two is to launch an orbital rocket from it. Step three is to make the booster of the orbital rocket flyback reusable. Step four is to make the upper stage a reusable spacecraft. THEN he can maybe start worrying about finding a way to do routine commercial passenger service.

Stratolaunch, SpaceX, Blue Origin are blazing the trail to the future. Virgin Galactic is doing an amusement park ride.

>>6847915
gaia stop being yandere pls

in flight ayylamo

>>6848177

Stratolaunch is a joke. Paul Allen is a mediocore space geek who is also full of himself and whose business track record is one of creating ideas that are handed off to others to implement either poorly or correctly who assumed that his mundane solution to space access that anyone could think of and has, using an airplane first stage, was a revolutionary breakthrough when it is nothing of the sort. He lacks sophistication to know that his ideas are superficial, and the space industry is a bunch of weasels who will gladly spend his money.

>>6847918

Not a solution, because space settlement viability is also affected by those conditions.

>>6847520
The first company I worked for had a kid who died in that first explosion. He was a dumbass from what I understand. It was sort of a cowboy type 121 airline and the mechanics were a mix of bright and not so bright. The kid virgin hired was not so bright, and it shocked nobody that he was involved in a major accident. I don't think virgin is hiring APs on anything but cost.

the word anomolly is a fucking joke, the correct word is disaster

>>6848189
please elaborate on dumbass, is it possible it was all his fault?

US needs to buy a large trampoline to get into space again.

>>6848193
Very much so, I would have to go find a recap of the incident to refresh what the talk around the shop was. If I recall it had something to do with a compressed gas explosion, and perhaps related to negligence on the handlers part. There were plenty of stories around the shop about how this new AP had left soaked rags around the shop, which in one case caused a fire. Things like this, he was kind of a bumblefuck

>>6848198
I think I recall one about him removing a split rim tire while it was aired up. Its all hearsay, I never looked up the report on the virgin incident. Todd Ivens was his name.

>>6847730

TIME TO BREAK OUT THE WEED

>>6848203
ah yesh, sounds about right. Heres the first incident and resulting fines.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/19/science/sci-rutan19

Im serious when I say that Todd was very capable of fucking up on the job, and one should probably view that incident as a management error. Unless you fold management into the scientific process of development, you are going to find the standards in APs are not created equal. And often management has been trained to meet deadlines, and "get it done" rather than take the time to cross all the t's. APs are at the bottom of the barrel in decision making, get paid very little in the US, but are the hands and eyes for what the engineers design. Its a huge operational disconnect, and you see it all the time in Airlines.

>>6848198
I heard they were just in T-shirts right next to the nitrous tank at ~1000psi in the desert heat. WTF.

But AFAIK, the cause of the static discharge that set it off remains unknown.

>>6848211
I see APs fueling with cells out all the time. I have no doubt they all had cells and weren't thinking twice about handling the Nitrous, didn't have anything grounded. It was something they had done about 100 times in the last 3 months without incident im sure.

>>6848203
this is all I needed to know, this man was full fucking retard

>>6848211
Where did you hear that it was set off by a static discharge?

>>6848216
I know they didn't have any burst disks on the tank, which was dumb. But you need a big proper spark to set off nitrous, I can't imagine a cell phone supplying the necessary energy to initiate decomposition.

>>6848222
ya a celphone just wont do it also nice trips!

The posts on the nasaspaceflight forums, which is full of actual rocketeers, suggest that Virgin was basically cheaping out in SS2.

They did not run the adequate tests on the new engine, the lack of automated flight systems, rushing the development, etc etc.

This was basically an accident waiting to happen.

What we have seen with these two latest accidents is that if you try and cut corners, you're going to get bit.

The hard work and money that Elon is putting into the raptor engine, Dragon and grasshopper is going to pay off huge dividends in the future.

>>6848222
I was just reading this:
http://www.knightsarrow.com/rockets/scaled-composites-accident/

And there are some comments added at the bottom that confirm that of course no safety measures were being followed on site etc, but the article and comments point to a much larger design problem with the tank and perhaps even the fittings.

Im sure it was a combination of several factors. Its hard to say maintenance crews had anything to do with the ignition, but certainly if they are displaying a disregard to safety in this one incident, its probably systemic throughout the organization.

>>6848229
>massive funding
>cut corners
Any bets on on exec staff skimming off the top?

>>6848053

How so, what is the "reservation list factor", for those who are unaware of it.

>>6848177

Stratolaunch is no more progressive than Virgin Galactic.

>>6848238
>pre-pay for seat
>craft explodes
>cancel seat
>get money back?

>>6848245
>"Sorry no refunds."

>>6848221
I corresponded briefly with a bloke from SNC (while discussing hybrid injectors). The activation energy had to come from somewhere, and a big spark can set off nitrous vapour, which is why we wire together hybrid rocket parts to prevent a charge diference building up (and earth them for static tests).

The part-composite tank was the issue. There was a cold flow test earlier (debated), and charge is thought to have built up as the nitrous flowed through the metal injector. With a metallic tank it would have discharged, but that didn't happen with the composite. A spark is then thought to have caused decomposition, which quickly heated the nitrous to burst pressure. This could have been avoided if the individual feed parts, including the injector plate itself, were earthed (as the engineers at SNC advised).

There's another theory that contends that the valve was opened by accident, and as nitrous goes supercritical in the desert heat, so was sensitive to rapid pressure changes in this phase, and so that's why it decomposed.

The main argument boiled down to whether the explosion occured before, during, or after the cold flow test.

Regardless, there was a real disconnect from the engineers who designed the thing.

>>6848238

The business executives and celebrities who have paid $200000 each for a seat once Virgin starts flying. All 800 of them.

>>6848247

>implying you know jack and fuck about Virgin's fine print
Which isn't to say that it's impossible that you're right, but I doubt Branson could get away with that kind of commitment for a highly experimental platform with a years-long waiting period.

>>6848250

Have they actually fully pre-paid, or have they only made a nominal reservation payment?

>>6848182
the carrier plane, effectively two 747s grafted together, is Burt Rutan's retirement vanity project. I think he agreed to it just for the bragging rights of having the largest airplane ever to fly.

>>6848253

I don't know. Either way, that's $160m+ that Virgin is certainly relying on to some extent.

>>6848250
You right I don't know.
But leaving the option for customers to pull their money, when other customers are depending on you to have the funding to fulfill the contractual obligations, would be incredibly stupid.

>>6848064
>I NEED

its not a bill of needs. liberal tears

>>6848254
>the carrier plane, effectively two 747s grafted together
Uh, no. They did salvage two 747s for the engines and other parts, but the wings and fuselages are new.

They don't need anything like the range or internal cargo or passenger capacity of a 747, so although the wingspan is huge, this has the appearance of a relatively lightly-built aircraft.

The point of the giant plane is that it replaces both the launchpad and about half of the booster, while being totally reusable. This will be a major step forward in both economy and capabilities.

>>6848279
Or, you know, it will be if SpaceX's flyback boosters aren't perfected and making Stratolaunch look vaguely ridiculous.

>>6848279

But it caps rocket weight which removes the upper chunk of the market penetration.

and they are locked into using their own rocket, and they may not be the most efficient rocket maker.

>>6847505
why is going to the edge of space worth millions of dollars? wouldn't a ride in the vomit comet be more rewarding?

>>6848288
True, but there are many advantages to air launch for a highly reusable system.

For instance, you can have a booster with rolling landing gear that doesn't need the sea level thrust to take off vertically or the beefed up landing gear to take off horizontally with a full load of fuel.

Plus, starting from above most of the atmosphere there's much less penalty for voluminous hydrogen tanks, which (together with the reduced thrust requirement, and lower pressure at booster ignition which means more efficient high expansion ratio nozzles) means you can have a lot of margin to work with for reuse.

Even if they end up with a smaller payload than other systems, if they're the first to efficient full reusability, they could be the ones driving the space travel revolution. And they could make a bigger carrier aircraft next.

Stratolaunch doesn't seem like the strongest contender, but it is in the running.

>>6848333
XCOR's planning on air launch eventually, too, as part of a multistage orbital spaceplane.

Virgin still have a better track record than NASA, I'd wager their investigation of what when wrong will be more thorough too.

Shit sux but this sort of thing is bound to happen from time to time with this sort of thing.

>>6848341
What I'm mostly scared about is that this will tarnish the reputation of private spaceflight as a whole before it can establish itself.

>>6848333
how long before we have hypersonic airliners? i remember reading that they basically travel in space. what happened to them? seems way more fun than riding in what is basically a rocket fired from an airliner.

>>6847802
i remember a rocket that the airforce used to break speed records a long time ago called the x15. it was launched from a b52. does spaceshiptwo use similar technology? i don't think an x15 ever exploded.

>>6848345
Gets compared to Concorde (which crashed ONCE due to debris on runway), everyone panics and avoids it.

>>6848349
srs why the hell is technology that we perfected in the 1960s blowing up in 2014? have we forgotten fundamental crap about space travel that we knew a LONG time ago?

>>6848365
yeah it is pretty silly how the yuros shut it down because of one crash ever. it was pretty old tho.

>>6848368
They shut it down because it was expensive to run. Virgin actually tried to buy the fleet but the fucks that own them just keep saying 'no we don't want your money we'd rather keep these beautiful marvels of engineering on the ground where they belong'. And Airbus refuses to help maintain them.

Also, MUH TERRORISM gets thrown around a lot but that's just as much an excuse as BUT IT CRASHED.

>>6848371
yeah at one point before icbms the us, yurop and russia all had supersonic strategic bombers. those things were beautiful. i think the concorde must be based on that technology. it is from around that era.

>>6848281
The thing is, all prototypes look vaguely ridiculous the first time. We spent centuries before we realized that flapping the wings was a bad idea. Decades before we realized that one ellipsoid wing was better than biplanes and triplanes. And another decade or two before we figured out supersonic flight.

So here we are with spaceplanes. Do you build a small one like SS1 to get investors/riders for SS2, and if you can make suboribital hops a viable business, can you scale the concept to transcontinental hops, and is there enough demand to fund the scale-up to orbit? That's Scaled/Virgin.

Or do you build the big plane first, because you're going to orbit and don't want to waste time on designs that are never going to orbit? That's Stratolaunch.

Or do you use fancy computers and nozzles to fly an aerodynamically-unstable first stage and land it upright in Earth gravity - an idea that would have been impossible in the 60s, and that barely worked in the 90s (DC-X). That's Space-X's idea.

Or do you just say "Fuck it!" and throw away the launch vehicle every time. That's what everybody else is doing, and it sucks as hard as trying to make a biplane supersonic.

Before you start building different designs and crashing airplanes, you have no way of knowing what design works best in which environment. A delta wing will never take off with a biplane engine. An F-22 is unflyable without computers. The Concorde was a great plane, but a lousy business proposition. So it is with rockets. You've got to build the damn thing to figure out if the design *and* the business plan works.

>>6847505
Elon's take? If he's not spazzing out about AI still he must be jizzing himself this week as his competition fails to produce viable products and horribly fails.

>>6848371
it would be awesome if they would sell them to branson. it would be about as cool as taking a ride on spaceshiptwo.

>>6848349
It's the same type of thing: an air-launched suborbital-capable rocket plane, but other than that, they're pretty different.

The X-15 was designed to break both altitude and airspeed records, to study controlled, level hypersonic flight and about suborbital hops out of sensible atmosphere. It was very nearly developed into an orbital spacecraft, by being launched on top of a missile. SpaceShipTwo is designed to carry passengers safely and reliably to an altitude of 100 km, with the benefit of extensive accumulated experience with hypersonic flight.

The X-15 used an oxygen/ammonia liquid-fueled rocket engine. SpaceShipTwo used a nitrous oxide / plastic hybrid rocket motor.

The X-15 had an ejector seat. I believe the SpaceShipTwo crew only had parachutes and a hatch.

The X-15 never had the engine just explode like this, but one broke up during reentry from suborbital spaceflight, and killed the pilot. Reaction Motors, the company that made the X-15's engine, did have an engine blow up in testing, killing one employee and injuring several others.

>>6848383
>Elon's take?

>>6848411

was he smiling like that too as he tweeted that?

>>6848417
That is what the image is designed to humorously imply.

>>6848341
How the fuck are they remotely comparable. Virgin flies suborbital trajectories. The energy requirements are a couple orders of magnitude lower than orbital flights, and FAR easier.

How did the one surviving pilot get out? There are no ejection seats. The little hole at the bottom is the emergency exit

>>6848471
eh nvm. That's the WK2 cockpit

>>6848472
The flight decks for WK2 and SS2 are almost identical, by design.

>>6848457
>Virgin flies suborbital trajectories. The energy requirements are a couple orders of magnitude lower than orbital flights, and FAR easier.
It's about one order of magnitude lower, and not a lot easier technically, particularly if you're comparing a vehicle that does a controlled re-entry and safe landing to an expendable launch vehicle.

It's true that the upper stage has to provide more delta-V than the booster, and that energy scales with the square of delta-V, but once you're lobbed on a suborbital trajectory, in many ways things get far easier. There's no air resistance. Rockets work much better in a vacuum, and can work with reasonable efficiency at much lower chamber pressures. You don't need as much thrust; since you're already on a ballistic trajectory, you don't need an initial thrust-to-weight greater than one to keep yourself from immediately falling back to Earth.

Basically, once you're in suborbital space, getting to orbit is a matter of pretty good specific impulse, reasonable thrust-to-weight, and a lightweight propellant tank.

Orbital spaceflight didn't take long to follow after suborbital spaceflight. It was mostly a matter of building a big enough suborbital booster and having the idea of staging.

>>6847604
This has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism.

Murder yourself.

>>6848489
Yah. With XCOR, that's the whole reason they're building a suborbital spaceplane, on the logic that it's not a massive leap from there to a reusable orbital spaceplane.