Fans of the space with a comfortable current account have spent many years waiting to finally be able to imitate an astronaut. Or almost. For suborbital flights from Virgin Galactic will last two hours and allow you to enjoy five minutes of weightlessness when the ship reaches 110 kilometers. They will cost $ 200,000 (160,000 euros).
But the inaugural flight of Virgin, which travels Richard Branson and his children, has been postponed several times, just to try to minimize the possibility of an accident.
The tragic accident of the ship SpaceShipTwo on Friday, in which one of the pilots died and another was seriously injured during a test flight, is not the first to suffer Branson’s company during the implementation of this project that will inaugurate the era of space tourism.
The company, founded in 2004, and lost three workers in July 2007 to register an explosion during a test at the initial stage of ship systems SpaceShipTwo , in the premises of Mojave, Calif.
The danger of working with rockets
And, as explained José Mariano Lopez Urdiales founder zero2infinity, a company that hopes to offer space tourism experiences within at least a couple of years, working with rockets is very dangerous. “I’m a rocket engineer and precisely why I chose to using a stratospheric balloon. It is safer “, told WORLD by telephone.
“What happened to Virgin is very sad, but it was predictable,” says outright. And, it claims, Branson’s company has been repeatedly advised by other engineers, including himself, to replace the hybrid rocket ship using a less hazardous system.
The hybrid rocket adds, use a type of plastic (polyamide such as nylon), ‘q ue has a very unstable combustion. And in such a large vehicle is quite uncontrollable. There you can easily turn a mass of burning plastic. ”
“If a good technology, lead the missiles. And if something is not safe enough to carry bombs, how will it be to take people? “Muses Lopez, who believes that the most clever of the company would have to acknowledge that he was wrong in choosing the rocket and change the system, especially after the 2007 accident in the test in which three people died.
In his public appearances, billionaire Richard Branson has always stressed that safety was their priority. Last February, said in an interview with The Guardian that could not afford to lose anyone during one of their flights. “The biggest concern is during re-entry [into the atmosphere] NASA has He lost 3% of astronauts have gone into space, and re-entry phase has been the main problem, “he said.
No spacesuit
On the other hand, Lopez Urdiales not understand how it is that the pilots did not wear spacesuit during testing. “It’s something that surprises us much to engineers who work in this sector. A space suit is only $ 100,000, which is a very small part of a project like the Virgin figure. We, for example, take during testing we do with the stratospheric balloon, “he says.
“I think it will be a blow to Virgin. To the other companies in the sector would have been good to succeed because we have helped secure funding for our projects, “says the engineer.
” What happened is not good for anyone in this industry because makes the risk perception of space tourism is greater than the actual ‘, Lopez concludes, the company will offer tourists in stratospheric balloon up to 30 kilometers. From there you will enjoy the views of the Earth similar to that contemplated Felix Baumgartner in 2012 in exchange for 110,000 euros. “We focus on a type of efficient, environmentally friendly and cheaper tourism ‘advocates.
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