[FPSPACE] Scaled Composites explosion

E.P. Grondine epgrondine at hotmail.com
Tue Jul 31 14:02:23 EDT 2007


The article and photo which used to be over at MSNBC (can't find them now) 
were pretty interesting.

Scaled Composites' test stand appeared to be the Spaceship 2 transporter.  
There were no dirt berms around it, and there was a vehicle with gasoline 
parked nearby when the explosion occured.  Rutan said they had run the cycle 
a hundred times, but that must have been with Spaceship 1 - which had 
different systems than Spaceship 2.

Scaled Composites appears to have lost 6 engineers ( 3 dead and 3 very 
seriously injured).  If they were all from the engine group, then it may be 
that Scaled Composites has suffered a nearly total loss of propulsion 
specialists.

No bystanders appear to have been killed or injured, only Scaled Composites' 
employees, which would limit their liabilities.

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