SpaceShipTwo Update

1. Folks:

   I’ve been following Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites for almost four decades now. Regulars at NASA Watch may think that I’m really into rockets, but airframes are my real ‘true love’ when it comes to geek tech. Oh, I flew model rockets as a teenager, but they were just glider launchers as far as I was concerned.

   Since the late ’70’s, Scaled Composites has produced about one new flying prototype aircraft a year. A vast majority were piloted as well. While few of their designs made it to market, their research has been adopted by many aircraft manufacturers around the world.

   Until the SpaceShipTwo program, Scaled Composites had a perfect record of employee safety, both in the air and on the ground.

   So, now that’s changed. Why?

   Before SpaceShipTwo, Scaled Composites had a simple business philosophy: We fly only when we’re ready and you get to see what we’re flying only when we’re ready to fly… and not before!

   They worked at their own pace and didn’t have to explain themselves when they had to backtrack or redesign.

   This isn’t a critique of Scaled Composites or Virgin Galactic, just an acknowledgement that the game has changed with the development of SpaceShipTwo. There is time pressure to complete the test program and it’s been very much in the public’s eye.

   This is surely the toughest project Scaled Composites has ever taken on, maybe they should have been given some space to follow a strategy that worked just fine for them for decades.

   Oh, back to airframes. When I first heard about this mishap, I couldn’t believe than an airframe designed by Scaled Composites could have been structurally unsound enough to come apart on it’s own. If premature feathering was the underlying cause of the breakup, than my faith in the airframe is restored. From what little data I could get, I had determined early on that side loads had pushed SS2 out of the airflow and that was what led to the hull loss.

   Premature feathering would do that just as surely as Challenger was destroyed, not by an exploding external tank, but by being kicked nose high into the airflow.

   SpaceShipTwo may have been a perfectly good spacecraft flown in such a way that would surely have destroyed it. If there’s any bright side to that, it could be that the issue that caused this mishap could be easily fixed by hardware and/or procedural changes.

   tinker

   1. It sure seems like the writing has been on the wall for awhile now. We all noticed how Rutan quietly slipped out the back door after the first accident that killed 3 of his employees. After all, Rutan’s no dummy.

      Regardless of this latest fatal accident it sure didn’t seem like SS2 was going to fly paying passengers in 2015, more likely it was never.

      After this latest death it’s almost certainly NEVER.

      1. I’m certainly far from an expert on Scaled Composites or Shaceship Two, engineering. aeronautics or anything… but my impression has always been that Rutan was an innovator, not an operator.

         Seems like he was always trying to stretch, try new things, not repeat himself, break the boundaries with his designs… and they weren’t always practical per se, but were part of a process of exploring what’s possible… for himself, and sometimes applicable in modified form for others.

         To me, he always seemed like a designer of experimental vehicles, not a designer of practical or commercial vehicles, and that’s a fantastic thing, as long as you keep things in their proper perspective.

         1. Very true, Rutan is a one of a kind engineer. He tried to stick it to NASA by building what became a one off suborbital spacecraft.

            Rutan’s mistake was to try and scale up(oh, the irony) SS1 and it has been an unmitigated disaster. He knows it more than anybody.

   2. “Challenger was destroyed, not by an exploding external tank, but by being kicked nose high into the airflow”
      Thank You!!!

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