SpaceShipTwo failed catastrophically during a test flight with a new motor killing 1 and injuring another who parachuted to safety.  It has been revealed that the deceased was Michael Alsbury  age 39 with 15 years of flight experience.  Reportedly the survivor was Peter Siebold a test pilot with 17 years of flight experience. Right now in failure Space Ship 2 still more survivable than either Soyuz or the now retired NASA Space Shuttles.  When those craft have a similar problem everybody dies.  If anyone who has put down their $250,000 really frankly wants to give up their seat, give it to me.  I will go.   Understand the risk when you strap in.  The risk is you may be blown up and/or have to experience a very... long... fall.   However, it is worth it.  The rewards of exploration for all of Mankind are worth it.  

Our world is the result of exploration and calculated risk taking.


While NASA may only call a space tourist a "space flight participant" and not an astronaut you will be no less of an explorer.    Were the passengers who left Great Britain on the Susan Constant, GodSpeed, and Discovery and made landfall in Tsenacommacah, and named it Virginia, any less gallant and worthy of the title explorer because they paid their passage?   Their deaths due to starvation* prove they were.  The great nation their descendants became, one which others would "chance" immigrate to, prove the worthiness of their sacrifices.  

When it comes to space we are relatively more like those who first built rafts and tried to cross to that spec of land in the distance hundreds of thousands of years ago.  The risk involved in being one of the first to take these steps is nothing to sneeze at yet the rewards are beyond measure.  Without the guts of those true pioneers we would have never made tools, harnessed fire, and left Africa to take control of the world.  

We are who we are because of the risk takers.  

Our very country exist as it does because many of our ancestors, of every color and many creeds, took the chance to say we will not be ruled by a distant King and Parliament.   Yes I know Richard Branson is British, no one's perfect.  Should those people have played it safe? 

Humanity as a whole is what it is because of those who took the chance. 

Last, I have a personal reason.  My home town has the distinction of being the childhood home of not one, but two Astronauts.  Eugene A. Cernan, and Lee J. Archambault were both NASA Astronauts were originally from the Village of Bellwood Illinois and educated in its schools.   We are a village of not more than 20,000.  Yet we have a true space faring tradition.  There is a Cernan drive, there was a Cernan park, and Apollo Park (in which I used to play as a child).  This is the kind of place where we learn at least the elements of algebra in 3rd to 5th grades.  If you go to the community college here, Triton, you're going to a place where they have the Cernan Space center.   I went to an Aerospace camp there when I was a child.  That is the kind of place Bellwood, IL is.   (I am a bit disconcerted by the idea that we have gone a shorter and sorter distance as the generations have passed.)  

I may be a bit more gung ho for space flight for that reason.  

TL;DR: The crash of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo is a tragedy and a setback.  We should be brave and support their cause morally.  I'd put my money where my mouth was if I had any and make the trip myself.   We are Humans, we are Americans, we are the children of those who thought different and took the calculated risk.  Space flight is a calculated risk I would take.  If those who have seats wish to give them up, give them to people like me.  ( I also think I'll want a parachute too.) 

*My namesake ancestor, Pocahontas, made the trip to London and did not come back either.  It is thought that TB is what caused her demise.  Exploration is always a risk.