Richard
Branson’s Virgin Galactic company ignored repeated safety warnings
before Friday’s fatal explosion, it was claimed last night.
One
leading rocket expert said the entrepreneur’s ambitious space project
had been playing ‘Russian roulette’ with the pilots’ lives because one
of the test flights was sure to end in disaster.
The
company’s chief executive, George Whitesides, denied claims that one of
the project’s own engineers had warned as recently as Thursday that the
spacecraft was too dangerous to fly – but had been overruled by an
executive who said the deadline was too pressing.
Investigators from the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stand beside the debris of Virgin
Galactic's SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave Desert after it exploded and
crashed during a test flight over California
Sequence of events: These images show the
Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket separating from the carrier
aircraft, left, prior to it exploding in the air, right, during a test
flight on Friday
Yesterday
US government investigators started combing through the five-mile long
wreckage of Sir Richard’s SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave desert in
California.
The
Virgin Galactic spacecraft had been scheduled to begin passenger
flights as early as next spring after eight years of delays caused by
technical problems.
But
even Sir Richard has had to admit that its fate is now uncertain after
the rocket blew up during a test flight, killing one pilot, Michael
Alsbury, and seriously injuring another.
Crash investigators say it may take a year to discover what caused the disaster.
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Crisis: Sir Richard Branson has had to admit the fate of his space tourism venture is now uncertain
However,
aerospace experts are already speculating that, whatever the cause, the
tragedy may permanently halt the race to take high-paying tourists into
space.
Virgin
insisted there had been no cancellations from the hundreds of would-be
passengers who are ready to pay as much as £150,000 for a 15-minute trip
into sub-orbital weightlessness.
But
US lawyers said the nascent space tourism industry could now expect far
greater scrutiny from aerospace regulators, particularly on the issue
of passenger safety.
With
the US space agency Nasa having lost 3 per cent of astronauts in fatal
accidents, sceptics wonder whether a commercial passenger company could
ever operate on such a high level of risk.
Questions
about the cause of the crash are already focusing on the fuel
propulsion system which was used to blast the rocket after it detached
from its carrier plane.
Virgin
Galactic has been using a combination of liquid nitrous oxide and
plastic fuel. But experts have warned for years about the instability of
nitrous oxide, so-called laughing gas, which is also used by dentists.
Carolynne
Campbell, a UK-based rocket engineer and lead expert for the
International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS),
said that if used in a rocket engine, nitrous oxide can ‘go bang in a
very unpredictable way’.
She
said yesterday that her repeated warnings to various Virgin Galactic
chiefs about the dangers of rocket propulsion were ignored. Although the
Virgin Galactic website has been describing nitrous oxide as ‘benign’
and ‘stable’ as recently as six months ago, experts note that it
contributed to the 2007 explosion at the company’s spaceport in which
three engineers were killed.
Miss
Campbell said: ‘They knew that three people were killed by this stuff
and yet they persisted in presenting it as safe, stable and benign.’ She
said Sir Richard’s company should ‘give up’ and ‘go away and do
something they might be good at like selling mobile phones – they should
stay out of the space business’.
She
added: ‘This explosion is not a surprise. It was Russian roulette which
flight blew up.’ Tommaso Sgobba, executive director of the IAASS and
former safety chief at the European Space Agency, said: ‘I have been
saying for some years now that this was an accident waiting to happen.’
Branon, right, with, from left, Burt Rutan, Mike Alsbury and Mark Forger: Mr Alsbury died in Friday's crash
Wreck: Virgin Galactic has been using a
combination of liquid nitrous oxide and plastic fuel. But experts have
warned for years about the instability of nitrous oxide, so-called
laughing gas, which is also used by dentists
Geoff
Daly, a British rocket scientist, said nitrous oxide was ‘very poorly
understood in large quantities’. SpaceShipTwo was believed to have
carried up to 12,000lb of it.
Some
critics have suggested that the space project has seen Sir Richard
confusing his two public endeavours, one as a buccaneering adventurer
who relishes personal risk and the other as a canny business
entrepreneur who makes millions by undercutting rivals in fields such as
mobile phones and air travel.
Virgin
Galactic chief executive Mr Whitesides has rejected accusations that
the company had been taking too many risks. He said the criticism from
experts amounted to a difference of professional opinion rather than
valid warnings.
He
insists they had paid ‘a lot of attention to the several hundred
engineers that we have on staff’ as well as other expert consultants
they had consulted.
Sir Richard has promised a full investigation into what went wrong and admitted his company ‘fell short’.
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