Downcast Branson in Mojave: Less certain about pushing ahead
Richard Branson, the Virgin Galactic Ltd. founder arrived at the crash scene of his spacecraft in the Mojave Desert - but stopped short of saying he would continue the quest after the experimental craft exploded during a test flight, said Bloomberg.
Branson in the Mojave
Earlier reports had him vowing to continue the project.
Branson, 64, told reporters in California that officials from Virgin Galactic and the National Transportation Safety Board would have to determine the cause of the crash before Virgin proceeds with its plans for commercial space travel.
“It’s fair to say that all 400 engineers who work here, and I think most people in the world, would love to see the dream living on,” Branson said. “I would say we owe it to our test pilots to figure out what went wrong.”
But asked about Virgin Galactic’s future, Mr. Branson paused seven long seconds before finally answering, “We would love to finish what we started some years ago.”
He added, “In the early days of aviation, there were incidents, and then aviation became very safe.”
Billionaire Branson founded subsidiary Virgin Galactic in 2004 with the goal of offering suborbital space flights for tourists, science missions and launches of small satellites.
With the crash of SpaceShipTwo over the Mojave Desert yesterday, Branson and Virgin Galactic face "the most significant setback in the history of commercial space travel, " said Bloomberg. The crash killed one test pilot and seriously injured another.
At a press conference at Mojave Air and Space Port, Branson said his quest for commercial space travel would be delayed at least until the investigation is complete.
“We do understand the risks involved and we are not going to push on blindly -- to do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy,” Branson said.“We are going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forward together.”
He said he’s received e-mails from would-be passengers urging him to forge ahead.“I think they’ve been patient today and will continue to be patient,” he said.Branson ten left the press conference to would meet the company’s 400 engineers.
SpaceShipTwo, the rocket plane meant to carry wealthy tourists on short on rides to space, crashed in the Mojave Desert on Friday during a test flight, killing one of the two pilots.
The pilots, not yet named , were flying the plane for Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company created by Branson, and Scaled Composites, the company that designed and built the plane.
One pilot was able to parachute from the plane and was taken to a hospital with “moderate to major injuries,” said Ray Pruitt, the public information officer for the local sheriff’s.
The test was the first time SpaceShipTwo had flown using a new, plastic-based rocket fuel.
In a test flight earlier this year, SpaceShipTwo reached an altitude of 13.4 miles and a top speed of Mach 1.4. A typical cruising altitude for a commercial airliner is around 36,000 feet, or 6.8 miles.
Virgin Galactic, had hoped to begin tourist flights next spring.It already has more than 700 reservations, initially sold for $200,000 a seat before rising to $250,000 last year.
The list of would-be astronauts includes celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber and Angelina Jolie.
Experts said it was too soon to tell when the effort would resume, said the New York Times.