On Halloween morning, the Virgin Galactic Spaceplane VSS Enterprise experienced a catastrophic failure during testing by manufacturer Scaled Composites, killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury and leaving pilot Peter Siebold with serious injuries. Within hours, the smart-takes criticizing the private spaceflight efforts by Virgin and Scaled as “Amateur-Hour Spaceflight” and “the aerospace version of beluga caviar” rolled in, essentially saying that the endeavor to develop space tourism is a useless frivolity. Such views not only misrepresent the goals of commercial spaceflight, they also insult the memories of the professional men and women who, fully cognizant of the stakes, have given their lives in the pursuit of mankind’s future in space. We must examine this disaster thoroughly in order to prevent issues from reoccurring, but we must not allow one incident to derail the incredible progress that so many have sacrificed so much to achieve.
Critics of Virgin Galactic and similar ventures have dismissed their efforts to create a space tourism market as a “billionaire’s boondoggle”. With ticket prices for suborbital spaceflights set between $95,000 and $250,000, it might seem like they have a point, but these critics are missing the larger picture. Airplanes, in their infancy, were treated with a similar disdain; too expensive, complex, and underpowered for any practical purpose outside the amusement of rich men and hobbyists, French general Ferdinand Foch quipped in 1913 that aviation was fine “as a sport”, but was worthless as an instrument of war. Within 30 years, airplanes had revolutionized warfare, enabled same-day transatlantic travel, and become accessible to a broader socioeconomic class of people.
As ventures like Virgin Galactic and their principle competitor XCOR develop and improve the reliability of their vehicles, flight rates will pick up, and economies of scale will allow the prices to fall. Over time, the clientele for the space ‘joyride’ will expand to include persons of more modest means, and eventually revolutionary services like point-to-point suborbital transport between New York and Tokyo in less than two hours become feasible. Letting Justin Bieber and Tom Hanks view the blackness of space and experience zero-gravity is not the end-goal of space tourism, it is merely the most economically sustainable first step to financing the real goal: opening the wonders and benefits of the cosmos to everyone.
In the early days of aviation, danger was omnipresent: Tony Jannus, who became the first commercial airline pilot in 1914, died just two years later in a training accident. Orville Wright himself nearly died in 1908 when the Wright Model A crashed during a demonstration for the army, claiming the life of his passenger. Otto Lillienthal, a German inventor who created the first successful gliders, suffered a fall in 1896. Before succumbing to his injuries, he whispered to his brother: “Sacrifices must be made!” Other pilots demonstrating “the right stuff” made similar comments: Gus Grissom, who would later die in the Apollo 1 fire, said “If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.” As heirs to this high-stakes legacy, modern engineers and test pilots—who are involved in both the development and operation of these experimental craft—understand the risks they are undertaking when they sign up for the business of designing and testing them.
If the record of past innovators is any indication, Siebold, Alsbury, and the three engineers killed and injured in a 2007 engine test failure were not risking their lives to satisfy the whims of billionaires, but because they truly believed in the cause they were advancing. Pending the results of the NTSB’s investigation into the accident, some of the specific criticism of Virgin Galactic’s design or management decisions might be justified, and it remains to be seen whether or not Virgin can or should remain in the space tourism business. Nevertheless, to argue that this accident should mean the end of the push to bring space to more people would be to dishonor the legacy of those who came before us. If we learn from this tragedy and finish what we started, the sacrifices of these brave pioneers will not be in vain. If we let the naysayers and luddites win, their deaths will have been for nothing.
