{"id":57956,"date":"2014-10-31T15:04:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=57956"},"modified":"2014-11-02T09:51:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-02T15:51:40","slug":"tourism-rocket-explodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=57956","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Galactic “SpaceShip Two” Explodes killing 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SpaceshipTwo\"<\/a>MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) – The wreckage of the Virgin Galactic space tourism rocket known as “SpaceShip Two” is scattered in Southern California’s Mojave (moh-HAH’-vee) Desert, after an explosion during a test flight.<\/p>\n

Authorities say one person onboard was killed, and another was seriously injured.\u00a0 A Highway Patrol officer says one person parachuted out of the craft.<\/p>\n

A photographer who witnessed the crash says the aircraft exploded after a plane designed to take it to a higher altitude released it, and the craft ignited its rocket motor.<\/p>\n

SpaceShip Two is typically flown by two pilots. It was designed to provide a sub-orbital thrill ride into space before it returns to Earth as a glider.<\/p>\n

The company isn’t saying what happened, other than that it is working with authorities to determine the cause of the accident.<\/p>\n

STATEMENT FROM VIRGIN GALACTIC<\/h6>\n

Virgin Galactic’s partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo earlier today. During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle. The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely.<\/p>\n

The Virgin Galactic team is cooperating with our partners at Scaled Composites and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as well as local authorities. We understand that the NTSB is scheduled to arrive in Mojave tomorrow morning (Saturday Nov. 1) to commence their investigation, which is expected to last several days.<\/p>\n

Local authorities have confirmed that one of the two Scaled Composites pilots died during the accident. The other pilot parachuted to the ground and is being treated at a local hospital. All of us at Virgin Galactic are deeply saddened by today\u2019s events. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those affected by this accident.
\nGeorge Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, provided the following statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur primary thoughts at this moment are with the crew and family, and we\u2019re doing everything we can for them now. I\u2019d like to recognize the work of the first responders who we work with in the Antelope Valley for their efforts on behalf of the team. We\u2019re also thinking of the team members that we have at the companies that have been working on this program.<\/p>\n

Space is hard and today was a tough day. We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today. We\u2019re going to get through it. The future rests in many ways on hard days like this, but we believe we owe it to the team, that has been working so hard on this endeavour, to understand this and to move forward. And that is what we\u2019ll do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Richard Branson is on his way to Mojave and is expected to arrive by early Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

We understand your interest in additional information. It is our understanding that there will be another press conference over the weekend at the Mojave Air & Space Port. We will post any logistical details as they become available, and we will provide another update from Virgin Galactic at that time in conjunction with the press briefing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) – The wreckage of the Virgin Galactic space tourism rocket known as “SpaceShip Two” is scattered in Southern California’s Mojave (moh-HAH’-vee) Desert, after an explosion during a test flight. Authorities say one person onboard was killed, and another was seriously injured.\u00a0 A Highway Patrol officer says one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57956"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58056,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57956\/revisions\/58056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}