Problems Plagued Virgin Galactic Rocket Ship Long Before Crash
From the WSJ
Long before the recent fatal crash of Virgin Galactic LLC’s rocket ship, the craft’s progress had been plagued by technical problems that few outsiders knew about, according to engineers and a former government official involved with the project.
Engineers and subcontractors working on SpaceShipTwo spent years wrestling with difficulties, ranging from inadequate rocket-motor thrust to problems in the flight-control system to structural deficiencies affecting the wings of the rocket’s carrier plane. Fixes were devised, flight tests were delayed and the result, these people said, was that some important elements of the project remained in flux for several years. Without a firm design, there was no way to reliably predict when the first passengers would make it to space for more than $200,000 a ticket.
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Over the years, Mr. Branson used sweeping terms to describe his space-tourism company’s goals. The Associated Press in 2009 quoted him saying, “We’re literally hoping to send thousands of people into space over the next couple of years.”
Michael Moses, head of operations for Virgin Galactic, referred to tension between Mr. Branson’s upbeat projections and the persistent hurdles that challenged the company’s hundreds of technical experts. “There’s a difference between the marketing and the engineering” sides of the company, Mr. Moses said 10 days after the accident.
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Other people familiar with the details contend that Virgin Galactic and its main contractor didn’t adequately address some problems that arose. A former senior troubleshooter on the project worried that fuel seepage into the carbon-fiber core material of the center wing section of the carrier plane from which SpaceShipTwo is launched threatened to compromise its strength.
Mr. Moses said engineers added extra material to the plane’s wings to ensure that they would flex safely. They also changed the design of some of the rocket ship’s tail surfaces in the wake of an aerodynamic stall and unusually steep descent during a test flight, another Virgin Galactic executive said.
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/problems-plagued-virgin-galactic-rocket-ship-long-before-crash-1415838171
