I disagree. The accident at Scaled was an industrial accident not a flight accident. There is no reason why Scaled should be under any additional scrutiny by the AST then Boeing would be by the FAA for the B787 if a tank truck of JP4 blew up at one of its plants where it is developing the B787.

The reality is that chemicals used as fuel explode sometimes, that is why such chemicals are used as fuels.

The alt.space community is making too big a deal out of this accident. Its almost like the alt.space folks are LOOKING to invite higher levels of regulation by the FAA by building up this accident. Hazardous chemical accident happen all the time, that is why they are regarded as hazardous chemicals. That is why OSHA has so many regulations governing there handling and use. The alt.space community simply needs to acknowledge this, check again their OSHA required safety policies and procedures, and then move on. In short it needs to start acting like the industry it claims it is then as a group of hobbyists.

The nice thing is that the testing of Spaceshiptwo will take many months before they’re even ready for any rocket tests so I flights will probably occur on schedule and maybe the rocket powered flights will start a little late but finish on time.

It’s nice that Branson is talking about a space hotel. Bet it’ll be a Bigelow space station!

In 2004, Branson said flights would commence as soon as 2007. Virgin Galactic have also said, “when it’s ready”. It would be nice if they told us their test flight program so we could assess how long after commencement of test flights until commercial flight.