One pilot dead,Chief Branson keeps dreams alive
Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket separates from the carrier aircraft prior to explosion in the air during a test flight on Friday. -AFP
Los Angeles: Virgin’s pioneering tourist-carrying spacecraft crashed on a test flight in California on Friday, killing a pilot and scattering debris across the desert and raising questions about the program’s future. But Virgin chief Richard Branson, while voicing shock at the accident involving Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, vowed to push forward towards the dream of space flight for the paying public.
“We’ve always known that the road to space is extremely difficult — and that every new transportation system has to deal with bad days early in their history,” he said. “Space is hard, but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together,” he said in a statement issued as he refueled en route for Mojave.TV images showed the wreckage of SpaceShipTwo, a test vehicle that flies to the edge of space, amid brush east of Mojave, a few hours’ drive northeast of Los Angeles.
The disaster is a blow to British tycoon Branson’s long-held dream of offering the first passenger space flights, which have been snapped up by Leonardo DiCaprio and other celebrities.The Virgin chief is due Saturday in Mojave, where the California Highway Patrol confirmed that one pilot had died and another was seriously injured and taken to hospital.
The spaceship had been carried aloft on a bigger aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo and then released for a test of its rocket engine above the Mojave desert, the latest in a series of tests.
Stuart Witt, head of the Mojave Air and Space Port, said WhiteKnightTwo took off at 9:20 am, and released SpaceShipTwo at an altitude of 45,000 feet at 10:10 am, after 50 minutes of flight.Two minutes later, Witt said it became clear as he watched from the space port that something had gone wrong, even though there was nothing obvious visually from the ground. “If there was a huge explosion, I didn't see it,” he said.
The SpaceShipTwo’s first commercial flight — in which Branson and his family have vowed to travel — has been repeatedly delayed, but was tentatively forecast for the first half of 2015, before Friday’s crash.
( Source : AFP )
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