<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I think that ALL of us can agree that whatever was being done it is self evident that it WAS NOT safe! <br /><br />Burt Rutan and his people need to find out what went wrong, and then see to it that it can't happen again! <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Frodo, I don't know if you remember back at Rocketdyne in the early 90s where they had a fire/ explosion in a lab, killing 3 Ph.D. chemists and a couple of technicians. This was when Rocketdyne was venturing into the solid & gell propellant formulation.<br /><br />I didn't know all were involved and killed then, but another Ph.D. chemist I was working with at the time knew them well, having worked together for decades. It was through him that I became appreciative of a personal connection with such tragedy . It was more than an institutional fault-tree investigation when human lives were lost, especially when they are your friends. <br /><br />We are a relatively small community of "family" for those of us who deal with these 'controlled explosion" business. We know that $hit still happens despite all safety precautions we take and we don't take any test lightly. <br /><br />Yet everyday there are many small companies, esp. in the mojave area, "pioneering' in innovative aerospace propulsion technologies venturing into unknown territories. The mojave area is a hotbed for aerospace innovation, then X-1, X-15 and now with Scaled, and a bunch private ventures, etc. Our imagination is not limited by what comes off the factory floor. We hot rod cars and we certainly hot rod rockets. They are the ones who bring us the "break through" ideas, inspire us to dare to dream again. <br /> <br />Without occassional failures, their successes would not be possible. We are sorry for their loss when human lives are involved. But we encourage them to move on, continue the innovative pioneer spirit that Southern California is known for, and the whole world awaits to be i <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>