When VSS Enterprise broke up over the Mojave Desert in late 2014, there was a knee-jerk reaction to what happened: since this was a private firm’s spacecraft, and since it used technology that hadn’t been part of NASA’s design, then obviously the work behind the SpaceShipTwo program was flawed and that Virgin Galactic needed to shut down their plans until they could make space travel of any kind death-free. When I wrote a vent about the incident shortly after Enterprise‘s breakup, I wrote:
“This unfortunate accident should not shake anyone’s reason to keep pushing the boundaries of what the human race is capable of. Humans have always risked in order to reap the reward, and eventually there will be a point where there is a failure. If you want to see the right direction, look at what Sir Richard Branson mentioned during his statement yesterday morning after arriving in the area to assist where possible with the investigation: that Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites will not “push on blindly”, but that “We owe it to our test pilots to figure out what went wrong. If we can overcome it, we’ll make absolutely certain that the dream lives on.”
Three years later, it does. The breakup of Enterprise was caused by the “feather system”, a part of the SpaceShipTwo design that pivots the twin tails of the craft to allow reentry by rotating the tails upward to increase aerodynamic drag, was activated at a higher speed than allowed and the craft tore itself apart. In the investigation, the NTSB was quick to point out that there wasn’t a fail-safe that kept the feather system from unlocking. The resulting break-up of Enterprise killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury, while pilot Peter Siebold suffered serious injuries, yet survived the incident when the craft broke up around him, allowing him to parachute to the desert floor.
About the same time of the Enterprise accident, the second SpaceShipTwo craft, Unity, was about halfway completed and in February 2016, was unveiled to the public. Shortly afterwards Unity was subjected to testing, including carry tests using the White Knight Two carrier aircraft, glide testing, feather testing, and now, the first powered flight. It should go without saying that both Virgin Galactic and all of the safety groups associated with any commercial space flight program have had to have been satisfied with changes made to the SpaceShipTwo program before moving on to powered flight, but here it is. Just like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch, we hope that Unity‘s first powered flight plants a seed in the head of any child watching, just like the Apollo missions did for a prior generation.
Note the painted on eye in the Virgin Galactic logo…it’s modeled after Stephen Hawking’s, and that’s only a little bit of coincidence…Hawking named Unity.
That’s just as cool as when I was glued to the TV watching the moon landings almost 40 years ago. Just think, less than forty years since it took an entire nation to send men to the moon, private enterprise is going to space!
The unexamined life is not worth living.
-Socrates
This is for space tourism, making space open to mass individuals. Beyond any doubt it will be expensive, however so were Aeroplane at the outset. Cost will descend as this program goes into full generation. At the present time this was an experimental drill, there will be more before bringing travelers into space.