#deadly explosion

Calls Mount to Clear Unexpected World Wwar II Bombs

THE death of a young engineer earlier this week has re-ignited the debate over who should be responsible for cleaning up World War II unexploded bombs in Solomon Islands. People of all walks of life – young and old – took to the social media this week arguing the pros and cons of the debate some 79 years after the deadly war between Japan and the United States and its allies ended. Young Raziv…

Lebanon blast: Five Indians suffered minor injuries, says MEA | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Five Indians suffered minor injuries in the deadly explosion that ravaged the Lebanese capital of Beirut earlier this week, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday. Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava also said India has sought from the Lebanese government an assessment of damage caused by the blast, based on which it will decide on the nature…

Beirut: French president Emmanuel Macron traveling to Lebanon after deadly explosion

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French President Emmanuel Macron is traveling to Lebanon on Thursday to offer support for the country after a massive, deadly explosion.

Macron’s office told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the French leader will meet with Lebanese political leaders. It provided no further details.

Lebanon is a former French protectorate and the countries retain close political and economic ties.

New Post has been published on http://www.brianbrown.net/2014/11/01/ntsb-probes-deadly-explosion-of-virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo/

NTSB probes deadly explosion of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

What went wrong in the deadly explosion of a Virgin Galactic rocket plane remained a mystery Saturday, as a squadron of federal investigators descended on the California spaceport where the young commercial spaceflight industry suffered its biggest disaster yet. The SpaceShipTwo, a narrow craft designed to whisk wealthy adventure-seekers into suborbital space, blew apart early Friday, just seconds after separating from its carrier plane during a midair launch tens of thousands of feet above the Mojave Desert. The pilot found dead in the wreckage was identified by the Kern County coroner’s office Saturday as 39-year-old Michael Alsbury, an experienced pilot for the aerospace firm Scaled Composites, the Los Angeles Times reported. The surviving pilot, who parachuted to the ground with severe injuries, was identified by the Kern County sheriff as Peter Siebold, 43, the Associated Press reported. Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, which built the craft, have given no explanation behind the explosion, describing it only as an “in-flight anomaly.” “In testing the boundaries of human capabilities and technologies, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. Yesterday, we fell short,” said Richard Branson, Virgin’s billionaire founder. “We will now comprehensively assess the results of the crash and are determined to learn from this and move forward together as a company.” It was the first time the rocket plane had used a new type of plastic-based fuel, splitting from the rubber-based solid fuel that had propelled its predecessor, the SpaceShipOne, and nearly all previous tests. The third and most recent powered flight, in January, sent the SpaceShipTwo soaring past 71,000 feet. But engineers believed the new fuel could perform better and push the craft even higher, Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides told NBC News in May. “It basically is the same cartridge,” Whitesides said then. “You just plug it in, and you connect the plumbing in a slightly different way.” Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Saturday that a “go team” of investigators had been dispatched to the spaceport to review the accident. “Test flights are typically very well documented in terms of data,” Hart said. “We may have lots of evidence to help . . . us to understand what happened and, more importantly, why.” The NTSB said early Saturday it was not yet sure whether the experimental vehicle had a black box, or at what altitude the accident had occurred. It will be the first time the NTSB has led an investigation into a space launch with passengers on board, Hart said. The agency helped investigate the fatal disasters of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. The explosion happened seconds after the spaceship released from the WhiteKnightTwo, a cargo jet designed to tow the craft up to 50,000 feet. Rocket scientists and spaceflight experts said they were waiting for more information from investigators before discussing a potential cause. But some said their initial focus was on the new fuel mix. “For the anomaly, I would look really hard at the new engine,” said John “Danny” Olivas, a former NASA astronaut and director of the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center for Advancement of Space Safety and Mission Assurance Research. “It could have been structural or something different. But that’s certainly where I would start.” The accident came just days after a privately financed, NASA-contracted Antares rocket was destroyed during a failed launch at an island off the Virginia coast. The Tuesday explosion of the rocket, slated to deliver a payload of supplies to the International Space Station, is under investigation. The SpaceShipTwo was the industry’s glossiest showpiece, with Branson saying he wanted to be one of the first passengers when flights began as early as next year. More than 700 celebrities and spacefaring hopefuls have paid up to $250,000 each for flight aboard the rocket plane, during which they had been promised a few brief minutes of weightlessness at the edge of space. Friday’s explosion was the most visible failure of the biggest test program in space aviation history, and comes 10 years to the month after the program’s largest milestone. In 2004, SpaceShipOne soared out of the atmosphere for the first time, winning a $10 million prize. But development in the years since has not been smooth. In 2007, during a ground test at the Mojave port of the SpaceShipTwo’s nitrous oxide delivery system, three people were killed and three were seriously injured from an explosion and flying shrapnel. Some industry watchers were critical of the aerospace firms’ risk-taking and called for more transparency in the days ahead. Doug Messier, a commercial-space blogger who witnessed the accident, tweeted afterward a series of questions over the firms’ safety culture, procedures and long-term prospects. “Ten years into #SpaceShipTwo program they still don’t seem to have reliable safe propulsion system,” he wrote. “Doesn’t bode well.” Tom Bower, an author who has written critical biographies of Branson, told the BBC, “What happened yesterday, very sadly for the pilot obviously, was both predictable and inevitable. . . . It was always dangerous and unfortunately was always going to end in tragedy.” But others were more supportive of the firms, comparing the explosion to the many deadly accidents during the development of space travel and advanced flight. “This is what exploring is all about. We risk our lives for what we believe in,” said Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and chief executive of XPRIZE, which awarded the SpaceShipOne’s $10 million prize. “I believe in [Virgin Galactic] and know without a doubt that they will succeed, and I will fully trust them with my safety when my turn to fly materializes.”

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