Richard Branson has touted Virgin Galactic’s space flights as an adventure unlike any other. “In the silent tranquility of space,” he intones during a soaring promotional video, “you will experience weightlessness and views of our beautiful planet that will change your perception of life.” While safety is mentioned, specific risks are not.
A fatal crash on Friday of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo will move safety concerns into the discussion about space tourism. The accident raises new questions about the oversight U.S. regulators exert in the nascent field, in which at least three major companies hope to make space tourism commercially viable. Elon Musk’s SpaceX seeks to make space travel routine—and to become a key player in the colonization of Mars—while Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is researching technologies to make private space travel more affordable. Hotel titan Robert Bigelow is aiming to develop large living modules for space tourism and research.
The Virgin Galactic unit exploded on Friday over the Mojave Desert in Kern County, Calif., at a location north of Edwards Air Force Base. The Associated Press reported that the craft blew up after it was released from the aircraft that carries it to a high altitude. The copilot was killed and the pilot was injured, Bloomberg News reported. The company was testing a new type of rocket fuel , according to media reports.
Virgin Galactic charges $250,000 for a ticket to space and says it has already collected more than $80 million from about 700 would-be space tourists. It has not yet sent tourists into space.
The accident came three days after a private rocket ferrying supplies and science experiments to the International Space Station suffered a malfunction and was destroyed 20 seconds after launch. No one was injured in that incident, which is likely to delay Orbital Science’s (ORB) flights for NASA.
Amid the excitement that space entrepreneurs bring to their endeavors—and few are as skilled as Branson at injecting glamor into a business venture—it’s fair to ask whether the enormous risks inherent in space flight have been given their due. Rockets are volatile and complex, as the history of fatal accidents in the U.S. and Russian space programs shows all too well. While the space startups attract top scientists and engineering talent, is there a role for government oversight in the development process before private space companies begin seeking U.S. approval for flights? The issue has drawn little public notice.
SpaceShipTwo was built by Scaled Composites, a company founded by Burt Rutan, who won a $10 million Ansari X prize a decade ago for building a manned spacecraft—SpaceShipOne—that could be reused for flight. Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen financed the project.
SpaceShipTwo is 60 feet long and built to carry six passengers and two pilots. It is flown to roughly 50,000 feet by a jet called WhiteKnightTwo and then released, at which point its rocket engine propels the spacecraft at 3.5 times the speed of sound to as high as 62 miles in about 90 seconds. Virgin Galactic says customers will have views 1,000 miles in each direction and then glide to a landing at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
