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27 Jul 2007
An explosion at the factory of Scaled Composites, which made the first private trip into space with SpaceShipOne, has killed three people and injured three more.
The explosion occurred during testing of the rocket engine systems for SpaceShipTwo, which will take passengers into low earth orbit with Virgin Galactic.
Early reports suggest that nitrous oxide was being pushed through piping without the rocket firing, and that the gas escaped and ignited.
"We were doing a test we believe was safe," Burt Rutan, head of Scaled Composites, told CBS. "We do not know why it exploded. We just do not know."
Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, expressed his sympathy to the families of the deceased and declined to comment further until Scaled Composites has completed its investigation.
Many astronauts have been killed in accidents, and many more ground crew, in the US. The entire crew of Apollo 1 died in their capsule after an oxygen fire, and the crews of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles died inflight.
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Do you agree?
Geez
Its too bad the people were killed and injured. These people though, they might as well be space race martyrs. They are but a small peice in a large puzzle of getting more humans into space. I sure hope this doesnt make people back out of the field, theres going to be amazing things going on pretty soon.
Posted by: Joe 29 Jul 2007
Nitrous oxide "ignited"?
"Early reports suggest that nitrous oxide was being pushed through piping without the rocket firing, and that the gas escaped and ignited." Nitrous oxide is not rocket fuel and will not ignite. It is a oxydizer and is used to oxydize (burn) the fuel in the near vacuum of space where there is little or no oxygen. Fuel for SpaceShipOne was synthetic tire rubber a very stable fuel. Nitrous oxide was chosen as the oxydizer because it is relatively safe, widely used in a variety of applications and there is a wide body of experience in handling it. It will cause other fuels to burn rapidly. Just as one should not smoke around a hospital room oxygen tent, one mus be careful when venting nitrous oxide.
Posted by: GV Smith 28 Jul 2007
Safety?
"Rutan slammed Nasa for a poor safety record, insisting that the private space industry could carry passengers with a safety record equivalent to the airline industry in the 1930s, and better than Nasa was managing today." Maybe not?
Posted by: A Balone 27 Jul 2007