Pilot killed in Virgin Galactic crash named as Michael Alsbury

RICHARD Branson has vowed to press on with his dream of commercial space travel, amid claims safety warnings were ignored before the disastrous rocket explosion.

Virgin ignored warnings: report

VIRGIN Galactic owner and British tycoon Sir Richard Branson has vowed to continue his dream of commercial space travel after the crash of his space tourism rocket, which killed one pilot and left another seriously injured.

His first public appearance since Friday’s disastrous spaceship explosion comes as British media reports Virgin Galactic ignored a series of warnings that its $500 million rocket was unfit for flight.

Speaking publicly for the first time after the SpaceShipTwo crash over California’s Mojave Desert, the Virgin Group founder said: “It is a horrible day for Virgin Galactic, for commercial space travel - it’s a massive setback.

“But we’ve got to pick ourselves up and see whether the problem is fixable, and hopefully move the programme forward.

Michael Alsbury, who was killed in the SpaceShipTwo crash.

Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson speaks at a press conference at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

Fateful moment ... The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket explodes in the air during a test flight on Friday. Picture: Kenneth Brown/AP

“I’m hopeful we’ll be able to overcome the problems.”

Branson is hopeful that the programme could be “back on track between four and six months” but his company would not “press on blindly” without knowing why its spacecraft crashed.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday after arriving in the California facility that had been the hub of Virgin Galactic’s ambitious space program, Branson said safety remained his paramount concern.

“We would love to finish what we started some years ago,” Branson said, adding later on, “We hope one day the test pilots will enable people to go into space safely.

“We owe it to our test pilots to find out exactly what went wrong, and once we’ve found out what went wrong, if we can overcome it, we’ll make absolutely certain that the dream lives on.

Grim find ... wreckage lies near the site where a Virgin Galactic space tourism rocket, SpaceShipTwo, exploded and crashed. Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP

London’sThe Sunday Telegraph reported it has seen emails and other documents in the public domain — dating back several years, and as recently as last year — in which the engineers warned of the dangers of Virgin Galactic’s rocket engine system.

Debris ... A tank, part of wreckage lies near the site where the SpaceShipTwo exploded in the Mojave desert.

Meanwhile, the pilot who was killed in the explosion of the craft has been identified.

Michael Alsbury, 39, died immediately when the craft tore apart, Kern’s County Coroner’s Office told the LA Times.

Another pilot, who has yet to be named, escaped but was seriously hurt.

Michelle Saling, Alsbury’s widow, told MailOnline: “I have lost the love of my life. I am living in hell right now.”

Investigation ... Members of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) arrive before dawn at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mohave, California. Picture: Josh Edelson/AFP

The craft, which is still in its test phase and which normally carries two pilots, had been carried aloft on Friday on a bigger aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo and then released for a test of its rocket engine.

“SpaceShipTwo has been released by WhiteKnightTwo, and is now flying freely,” Virgin Galactic wrote in a blow-by-blow account of the flight, adding: “Ignition! SpaceShipTwo is flying under rocket power again.”

The next tweet announced an “anomaly.”

Onlookers saw at least one parachute from the craft.

Witnesses at the crash site, about 193km north of downtown Los Angeles, reported seeing a body still strapped into its seat.

Virgin Galactic had hoped to start ferrying wealthy customers to the edge of space in 2015, charging $US250,000 ($270,500) per person for a ticket on the company’s six-seater SpaceShipTwo. Among the celebrities already signed up are Justin Bieber and Angelina Jolie.

More than 500 people have already reserved seats for a minutes-long suborbital flight.

Sir Richard told reporters on Saturday that anyone who wanted a refund would be able to get one.

The wreckage is strewn across 1.6km of the desert.

Branson’s full statement to media:

“This is a very tough time for all of us at Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company and Scaled Composites, and our thoughts remain with the families of the brave Scaled pilots, and all those affected by this tragedy.

We are determined to find out what went wrong and are working with the authorities to get that information. It is too early for me to add any details of the investigation at this stage.

We have always known that commercial space travel is an incredibly hard project. We have been undertaking a comprehensive testing program for many years and safety has always been our number one priority. This is the biggest test program ever carried out in commercial aviation history, precisely to ensure this never happens to the public.

The bravery of test pilots generally cannot be overstated. Nobody underestimates the risks involved in space travel. Commander Chris Hadfield is amongst those who has sent moving notes of support, in which he highlighted the nature of space projects. He wrote: ‘As a former test pilot, crashes and even deaths were frequent. It is a known part of the business. Little solace, but reality. Pushing the bounds of knowledge and possibility comes with unavoidable risk.’

Richard Branson poses with SpaceShipTwo at a Virgin Galactic hangar in September 2013.

In testing the boundaries of human capabilities and technologies, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. Yesterday, we fell short. We will now comprehensively assess the results of the crash and are determined to learn from this and move forward together as a company.

We have been touched by the overwhelming support coming from not just the space community but the world at large. If I could hug every single person who has sent messages of love, support and understanding over the past day, I would. The space community sticks together, and there have been touching messages of solidarity from NASA, X PRIZE, our customers, the media, the Virgin family and many, many thousand members of the public inspired by the vision of commercial space travel.

We do understand the risks involved and we are not going to push on blindly — to do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy. We are going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forwards together.

I truly believe that humanity’s greatest achievements come out of our greatest pain. This team is a group of the bravest, brightest, most determined and most resilient people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. We are determined to honour the bravery of the pilots and teams here by learning from this tragedy. Only then can we move forward, united behind a collective desire to push the boundaries of human endeavour.”