Virgin Galactic Spacecraft Crash Kills Pilot

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29857182

Reinforces the fact that being an astronaut is the most dangerous job on (or off) the planet.

I'm in favour of a continuing space programme for scientific progress,
but when someone dies in the development of a commercial service to send rich people
into space for the hell of it, I wonder if his death was really worth it.

 

Definitely not worth it IMO.

 

I would agree with you in wondering that.

But I don't think it should be prohibited or anything like that.

I would tend to expect that he was well aware of the risks, and that he was doing something he was passionate about and excited by.

I do think that the US space program should be greatly expanded and given anything it needs - but if you want to toss rich people into space, hey, whatever.... if I had less obligations to others, I'd gladly hop on one of their space-hoopties, fully understanding that shit could go wrong - sometimes rockets blow up on the launch pad, but it's still worth getting on them.

Horrible shit happens to scuba divers, but people still go scuba diving, and find it to be entirely worth it - cave diving is the scariest shit, but people live for it - and when they do a lot of it, they also find the bodies of other people who did a lot of it.

 

YIKES!

 

A better way for the rich to contribute to scientific progress would be to tax them as necessary, and put that money towards real scientific progress, not space joyrides.

I'm fine with space joyrides - but get get outta here with that, they're not contributing to anything but themselves.

 

You'd think after supposedly making it to the moon 50 years ago we'd have simple aeronautics under our belt by now.

 

Yes, but it is going to be these private ventures that take space travel to the next level, not any governmental programs.
There are a number of privately held companies that are working on the absolute bleeding edge of space travel and exploration.
Virgin is simply the most vocal/visible.
So if only looking at the $$$ aspect, then no maybe not worth his life, but if looked at from the perspective of the overall advancement of space travel, then yes, it may be worth it in the long run.

 

No, because Justin Bieber was not riding as a passenger.

 

Maybe they need some more German scientists. It was people like Von Braun who put the US into space after all.

The Russian rockets seem to work well too.

 

It seems like so many people are trying to hit landmarks in space sciences. India had a major score as did the ESA. But some of these efforts are being undertaken on a shoestring budget using antiquated and experimental technologies. It's interesting to watch this happen. People are able to get into the space game with off-the-shelf technology. I saw the first lamb chop in space the other day. Sure, it was only the upper thermosphere, but it's way above the earth.

We are living in the exciting time that we in the 60s thought was just around the corner. Politics slowed space to a crawl. We had a single Saturn V left as Skylab was starting to fail. Instead of doubling down and sending up an additional Skylab to become the first 2 pods in a space station, it was decided instead to go into orbit with a single-use docking adapter to link up with a Soviet Soyuz so astronauts and cosmonauts could shake hands for the cameras.

We'd already have people on Mars if we hadn't squandered so many resources on social experiments that largely failed (like the War on Drugs).