Investigators are just beginning to uncover clues pertaining to what caused the Virgin Galactic “space tourism” rocket, SpaceShipTwo, to crash late last month. Clues as of now are very sparse and tenuous and no one is completely sure why the rocket prematurely engaged a feature to aid the craft in landing before the deadly crash.
The incident that left one person dead and another in critical condition has caused many people to question the quality of the company’s spacecrafts, and has also raised widespread doubt regarding Virgin Galactic’s reliability as a supposedly safe and trustworthy company. Officials claim the crash will push back the date that ticketholders can travel outside of Earth’s atmosphere by up to as much as a year and with tickets being a whopping $250,000, financial struggle could possibly ensue for the company with no money coming in to pay expenses.
Most debris from SpaceShipTwo was collected by the t by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) at the main wreckage site in the Mojave Desert, yet many remnants of the craft were found scattered across a large 35 mile radius.
Christopher Hart, NTSB Chairman, claimed video recordings from the cockpit ,,show the co-pilot pushing a button to unlock the rocket’s special “feathering” feature far before he was supposed to. The “feathering” apparatus acts like the wings on airplanes used to ensure easy landing by increasing drag, thus slowing speed. The only difference with SpaceShipTwo is that its own unique set of wings jut out at a much, much greater angle to drastically decrease speed, which can create a potentially dangerous situation.
Although evidence points to the crash being the co-pilot’s fault, there is more to the story. Simply pushing a button could not have unlocked the feathering system, a lever must also be pulled to activate it.

These two steps acted as a sort of safety measure so that if someone accidentally pushed the wrong button, nothing would unexpectedly go wrong. This is the key piece of evidence that has placed the blame of the crash on the rocket itself as faulty system configuration could have been the cause.
Still, questions are flowing in. Why did the co-pilot press the button? Was it a mistake? Why did the wings jut out if the lever wasn’t pulled? Was it just a fluke?
As of now, the only answer anyone has to these questions is that the crash was caused by mechanical failure, and that the rocket’s computer system could be to blame. A final statment regarding the cause of the crash could take months to be released as other discoveries may be made during ongoing investigations.
With so much scare, uncertainty and question after SpaceShipTwo’s crash, the possibility of space tourism will more than likely be delayed for years as flaws in spacecraft construction will be repaired and techniques regarding the practice will be perfected.