Tragedy won't crush space tourism, supporters say

The second crash this week of a spacecraft is a setback for the fledgling field of space tourism, aerospace experts say. But it's unlikely to stop an industry that has attracted a trio of ambitious, daring billionaires like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk from trying to open a pathway for ordinary citizens to travel into space.

VirginGalactic's SpaceShipTwo, which was designed to ultimately carry paying passengers into suborbital space, crashed Friday in the Mojave Desert during a test flight. The accident occurred three days after an Orbital Sciences rocket that was headed to the International Space Station exploded within seconds of liftoff in Virginia.

The long-term effect of the accidents on the burgeoning commercial space travel industry will likely be slight, experts say, but it may hobble the businesses that suffered the losses in the short term.

"It's unfortunate that both mishaps happened in one week because it has an impact on people's impressions,'' said Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut who has flown four missions to space. "I think the long-term impact on commercial spaceflight will be minimal, but there are significant setbacks for both companies.''

Speaking at a news conference Friday, Virgin Galactic's chief executive George Whitesides said, "Space is hard, and today was a tough day.'' But, he added, "we believe we owe it to the folks who were flying these vehicles as well as the folks who have been working so hard on them to understand this and to move forward, which is what we'll do.''

Virgin Galactic was founded by billionaire and aviation enthusiast Branson, the colorful British entrepreneur who launched Virgin Atlantic and several other airlines.

Musk, founder of PayPal, has Space X, which designs, builds and launches space vehicles and rockets. And Amazon founder Bezos has launched Blue Origin, a company that is "working to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system," according to its website.

Those men — and the pilots, engineers and others who have been helping them to push into space — understand that it can be a dangerous enterprise, said Bob Weiss, president and vice chairman of the XPrize Foundation, which a decade ago awarded the $10 million prize to the creators of SpaceShipOne, the predecessor to Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.

"I don't think that overall it's going to set back space tourism,'' he said of Friday's accident. "The people that are directly involved with this effort understood the inherent risks . ... This was pioneering work. Test flight always has risks involved, and those risks are taken so that they can be mitigated or eliminated as much as possible, whether it's for an airplane or spacecraft when they're made operational.''

There are parallels between the burgeoning private exploration of space and the dawn of airline travel in the past century.

Pedro Llanos, who teaches about the commercialization of space at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach campus, said that space travel has suffered similar, sometimes deadly setbacks, in other stages of its evolution.

"It happened ... in the space era with the Apollo. It happened with the shuttle,'' he said. "The reason it happened in the past is because we were testing new technologies. It's happening now because we are pushing technology's boundaries, to move space exploration forward.''

Such exploration is critical, Llanos said, whether it's to create the possibility of mining asteroids for resources that are scarce on Earth, or perfecting technology that will one day allow a person in California to travel to Australia within a couple of hours. "It will help us,'' he says. "It will help society.''

Branson told CNN in September that he was hopeful Virgin Galactic might get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to move beyond test flights to carrying paying passengers — after his own family took the maiden voyage — as early as next year.

Virgin Galactic has long been seen as the likely first commercial space line. Branson told USA TODAY in 2011 that he envisioned moving beyond suborbital space to orbital flights, and trips between continents that could be flown in a fraction of the time that they take by airplane.

Now XCOR Aerospace, which has been developing its own suborbital vehicle, may get its paying passengers into space first, says John Spencer, founder and president of the West Los Angeles-based Space Tourism Society.

"It may be now that XCOR is first to go into a commercial setting because it will take a while for Virgin Galactic to catch up,'' he says.

Still, when it comes to having a fleet of vehicles to ferry passengers high enough to experience weightlessness and glimpse the curvature of the Earth, Virgin Galactic still has the strongest chance of being first.

"Virgin Galactic will eventually recover ... because of the extensive experience Branson and the Virgin brand has with one of the world's most successful airlines. Being first is cool, but that doesn't really matter when you're creating a long-term vision for an expanding industry,'' Spencer said.

Among the hundreds who have paid tens of thousands of dollars for a ticket on one of Virgin Galactic's flights are actors Ashton Kutcher, Tom Hanks and Angelina Jolie. Spencer said those who want to go into space aren't easily dissuaded.

"One of the inherently unique aspects of space is it is dangerous but people are willing to risk their lives for that experience,'' Spencer said. "Just like climbing Mount Everest or sky-diving.''