No Automation, One Shot at Landing: It’s Really Hard to Fly SpaceShipTwo

Friday morning, Virgin Galactic’s spaceship, meant to eventually take wealthy passengers on brief rides into space, crashed during a test flight over southern California. One of the pilots onboard was killed, the other suffered serious injuries and was transported to the hospital. It’s a serious setback for the space tourism effort, but is unlikely to kill the enterprise altogether. The program is quite advanced, and Richard Branson’s employees have put a ton of effort into finding a reliable way to get people into space. Here's how they plan to do it once they're back on track.

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