Virgin Galactic pilot defied the odds to survive crash | Hacker News Reader

Virgin Galactic pilot defied the odds to survive crash

latimes.com

48 pointsdanso18 comments

If you're interested in the extraordinary characteristics that are needed to be a test pilot or an astronaut or the early history of the space program, check out Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" ( http://www.amazon.com/Right-Stuff-Tom-Wolfe-ebook/dp/B00139X... )

It also puts the Virgin and other private space travel experiments into context. This stuff is really hard and dangerous. It takes a special breed of people to sign up for it and then figure out how to survive when things go wrong or when things are less than ideal. It's not just guts but also a lot of intelligence and the ability to stay calm when you are less than a minute from oblivion. Chuck Yeager had a number of close calls.

> This stuff is really hard and dangerous.

I really don't know why they don't control these prototypes remotely. It's 2014 and while I see that a human is the better choice for space travel because machines can't yet understand every situation it's kind of strange to endanger the test pilots for early test flights. Especially in light of recent fuel changes and aerodynamic problems.

That being said. My uttermost respect for everyone involved in these endeavours. In the digital age it's more and more looking like a miracle that humans where on the moon in 1969.

It's really hard to control these things remotely. If you use remote control you have to worry about latency, which can make recovering from bad situations impossible. And if you rely on auto-pilot you are testing both a vehicle and its autopilot at the same time. For a highly experimental vehicle this is extremely risky. The reason you need to test the vehicle is because you don't know 100% for sure what it's going to do. And if you don't know, how can you design an autopilot that brings it back every time.

Consider what happened with SS1 when it started rolling uncontrollably: http://gfycat.com/GargantuanRecentJackrabbit can you imagine an autopilot that would properly handle this situation? Good thing they had Mike Melvill in there.

Which is worse losing a test vehicle or losing pilots? Latency should be a non issue at the distances they are dealing with.

Well you don't want to lose either obviously. You don't go in there thinking you might lose the vehicle. We're not the 1950s anymore.

From what I get Virgin Galactic was under extremely high pressure to get their founder into space by end of 2014 because of contractual obligations with their Arab sponsors. That may have led them to do riskier stuff in order to advance as quickly as possible after lots of delays with their machine. They seem to be in a pretty bad spot now unfortunately.

Initial evidence indicates the plane broke up because of operator error (deployed feather while under power) rather than mechanical failure because of inadequate testing.

Why was this operation valid?

Part of me can understand why test pilots in the 50s, 60s, 70s, etc did what they did. American test pilots and early astronauts did it for country first (in the context of the cold war), humanity second.

I have a hard time understanding why a test pilot would risk their life so that Jerry Seinfeld can fly to the edge of the atmosphere and back.

Acrobats risk their lives while entertaining casino guests:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cirque-du-soleil-da...

I suspect that the test pilot who gets to fly a new kind of spaceplane finds it more gratifying than the acrobat who does the same show every night for a decade.

As a stage performer, you're grateful for every performance you get to do. It might get a bit old, but it beats not being on stage. (Also: You don't last for a decade at any given show. You keep moving on to other things.)

And for many, being on stage is every bit as exciting as flying a space ship. The emotional energy from a good performance is amazing. (It's certainly not the pay that keeps them)

Someone should write a book on how to exploit people who do things for a love that transcends money.

You say that you understand people risking their lives "for country". I don't understand that.

There are lots of motivations in life and nationalism is only one reason. Personally, I don't think nationalism is good for motivating people towards more than warfare. I would argue that even the Apollo Program wasn't motivated by nationalism (it merely exploited nationalism for budget and attention) – its real motivation was true to the George Mallory explanation for risking his life climbing Everest: because it's there.

I do understand doing things to reach the edge of space because its there. For the engineering interest. To change people's perspective about what is difficult and what is easy. To make people look towards space instead of towards their borders and flags.

People have stopped thinking that progress can be made in space. Virgin Galactic and other commercial space companies are trying to change that. Sending rich people to space is simply a funding model.

> American test pilots and early astronauts did it for country first (in the context of the cold war), humanity second.

That's a bold statement. You don't think it might be an adreneline rush / wanting to push your body to its very limits kind of thing?

Just basing my statement off of American pop history. But I do believe it. My brother was a test pilot and I've also met some true patriots in my professional work.

It sounds rather fun flying experimental rocket ships. I'd give it a bash if I was any good at that stuff and they'd have me.

The beginnings of what I'm sure is a fascinating story, but there are some real weird turns of phrase in this story:

>It was a real world case of survival in the face of disaster, like the movie "Gravity."

>In October 1947, he ejected out of one of the first combat jets, the Republic F-84, and hit the tail at 500 mph, breaking both legs and busting his face.

This article doesn't say how he got out.

I think it's possible the pressurized cabin stayed in one piece long enough that he might have stayed in it for part of the descent before bailing out.

I really look forward to hearing his story.

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