Engineering news
An expert on rocket propulsion has urged Virgin Galactic to "give up" on its space project following the recent test flight crash in which a pilot died.
Claims have emerged that safety warnings given several years before SpaceShipTwo crashed in the Mojave desert in California on Friday were ignored.
Carolynne Campbell-Knight, lead expert on rocket propulsion for the Netherlands-based International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS), said: "They should stop, give up.
"Go away and do something they might be good at like selling mobile phones - they should stay out of the space business."
She claimed she had contacted those involved in the project in around 2009 or 2010 to raise her concerns about the use of nitrous oxide.
This was a result of an explosion in 2007 during testing for the development of a rocket motor that killed three workers.
She said nitrous oxide can "go bang in a very unpredictable way", adding: "My view is from my own engineering experience which I shared with them - they obviously took the position that they knew better."
Campbell-Knight stressed it was not yet clear what caused the latest incident, adding: "There's any number of things that could have brought it down."
Describing her response to the crash, she said: "My initial reaction was shock but not surprise."
Virgin Galactic said it "is cooperating with an independent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and during that time is not permitted to comment on the accident".
Adding: “Now is not the time for speculation. Now is the time to focus on all those affected by this tragic accident and to work with the experts at the NTSB, to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day, and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important mission.”
However, George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic chief executive, dismissed claims that safety warnings had been ignored, saying he was not aware of any official warnings from the IAASS. He told the Financial Times: "In the space community you will be able to find people who have favourite technologies of different types. One group will say their type of technology is better than another."
SpaceShipTwo had been flying for the first time with a new solid plastic-type propellant ignited by nitrous oxide, rather than the rubber-based fuel used previously. The investigation into the crash is expected to take 12 months.
Campbell-Knight is a co-partner of Knights Arrow, an engineering project that develops rocket motors for high-speed cars, including projects such as the RS 200 Cosworth, and the Group C Silk-Cut Le Mans Jaguars. The firms “Autodiverse” rocket-motor powered car, "Knights Arrow" has been the test-bed for the development of a range of Nitrous-Oxide bi-propellant rocket-motor systems.