Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight
by smackfu on Friday October 31, 2014 @04:46PM
(#8541040)
Fair point, but the failure modes of flying seem to be more addressable than those of rockets. Like if the airplane engine is essential, add enough that you can tolerate a failure. If control surfaces are essential, add redundant systems. Whereas the failure mode of rockets tends to be exploding, and that's pretty hard to mitigate.
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Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight
by zepolud on Friday October 31, 2014 @05:22PM
(#8541200)
The failure modes of rocket engines could be explosions but nobody says you can't have multiple redundant engines on a single rocket. In fact, in 2012 Falcon 9 demonstrated exactly that: one of their 9 Merlin engines blew up but the rest redistributed the load and the rocket successfully delivered the payload to the ISS[1].
[1] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/10/08/sp...
Re:SpaceshipTwo crashes shortly after Mojave test flight
by robryk on Saturday November 01, 2014 @05:45AM
(#8542609)
According to the article you are quoting the engine didn't explode; it's just failed. I'd be very impressed if a rocket survived an explosion of one of its engines (they are much closer together than jet engines on a passenger plane and even i such planes an explosion of one engines can damage others due to shrapnel).