Private companies argue they’re democratizing space exploration by offering it to celebrities and millionaires. But in New Mexico,locals are footing the billThe craft broke up in the clear sky 45000 feet over the Mojave desert. During a Virgin Galactic test flight on a still October morning, pilot Michael Alsbury accidentally pulled a lever, and prematurely deploying SpaceShipTwo’s silver scissor wings. With a sound “like paper fluttering in the wind”,the drag tore apart the fuselage and its logos for Land Rover and Grey Goose.
What was left was a flowering of red fabric in the scraggly bushes, the chute marking the site where co-pilot Peter Siebold floated 10 miles to soil. Alsbury did not survive.
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Source: theguardian.com