In an article about SpaceShipTwo crashing in California, it tells about SpaceShipTwo crashing in a test on Friday, October 31st, killing one person and injuring another. SpaceShipTwo was an idea started by Richard Branson who also owns the popular Virgin Mobile and Virgin airlines companies. Two pilots were on the ship and one of them died and the other was seriously injured, located near the crash after parachuting out of the ship. The control base said they knew something was wrong when they hadn’t heard anything from the pilots after a minute and a half. Virgin is already having people, mostly celebrities, reserving spots to ride for $250,000 for the experience.
 |
| newsela.com |
I think it was really unfortunate that the spaceship crashed. I think it would be really cool to have seen the first successful galactic airline. I wanted to know what the cause of the crash was, though. I also think it was interesting how people are already reserving tickets to ride. Why would you want to reserve tickets for a shuttle ride that has already proved unsuccessful and could possibly kill you?
Questions:
- What do you think could’ve caused the crash?
- What do you think could’ve been done to prevent this from happening?
- Why do you think the control base stopped receiving messages from the ship?
Since SpaceshipTwo is a recent invention, probably a flaw in the design caused the crash or the pilots controlling it had a lack of practice of maneuvering the ship. Possibly a simulator or more practice could have prevented it. Also the control base doing something when they sensed something suspicious could have possible prevented the crash. I think the fact that celebrities are already booking tickets for this dangerous ride is interesting. I think that since technology has come such a long way, many people take for granted all the amazing things we are now able to do instead of seeing the events like this that lead up to it.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that could have caused the crashing could have been a faulty wiring in the actual ship. People who put it together may have done one thing wrong, making the ship fail even if the captain was doing the right thing. Or, it could have been the captain itself. I think that to prevent this, they could have made sure that it was ready to go, nothing wrong with it, and make sure the captain was ready to go, and make sure he had everything 'in line'.
ReplyDelete