Virgin Galactic Executive Summary of Submission on SpaceShipTwo Accident

> "When accomplished at 1.4 Mach or greater (as required per the SpaceShipTwo checklist procedures and the PF-04 test card) the feather system remained retracted due to a sufficient closing pre-load from the feather actuators and favorable, tail-down aerodynamic loads."

> "On normal rocket-powered flights, checklist procedures called for this step to occur after rocket motor burn out while in space just prior to apogee."

I still haven't seen any information on exactly why this particular flight test card called for actuating the feather mechanism at some time other than apogee. Were they trying to test the flying qualities while feathered at a particular dynamic pressure? It doesn't make any sense for the copilot to move the unlock lever while the aircraft was still accelerating unless the test card called for it. And if it did, then did the engineers and test planners fail to take this possible failure mode into account before the flight?

The full transcripts were posted on the nasa spaceflight forum here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35974.440. One user provided the following summary:

> There was corporate conversational knowledge that unlocking the feather system during the transonic region would be catastrophic, but this knowledge wasn't formalized into the pilot handbook or in training. There was formal knowledge that unlocking late would lead to a flight abort, and a recent event had occurred where the unlock was late. Add to this copilot workload increases between flights, the fact that training wasn't done in the suits and equipment worn on the real flight or under the g and vibration loads in the flight, and the result was the copilot unlocked the feather early leading to the loss of the vehicle. As usual, not a single failure, but a chain of smaller failures - lack of formalization of knowledge, lack of training in the operational environment, recent events, pressure to avoid an abort, and you get an overcompensation.

They should just do all this in software. Anything that that's complex and life or death should be autopilot driven.

Why are these ships manned?

Maybe space tourism increases public interest in interstellar travel?