Spacecraft for tourists explodes during test in another setback for commercial space travel
MOJAVE, Calif. — A winged spaceship designed to take tourists on excursions beyond Earth’s atmosphere exploded during a test flight Friday over the Mojave Desert, killing a pilot in the second fiery setback for commercial space travel in less than a week.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo blew apart after being released from a carrier aircraft at high altitude, according to Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the explosion.
One pilot was found dead inside the spacecraft and another parachuted out and was flown by helicopter to a hospital, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.
The crash area was about 120 miles north of downtown Los Angeles and 20 miles from the Mojave Air and Space Port, where the flight originated.
British billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, has been the front-runner in the fledgling race to give large numbers of paying civilians a suborbital ride that would let them experience weightlessness and see the Earth from the edge of space. Branson was expected to arrive in Mojave on Saturday, as were investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Art or graffiti? Either way, removing paintings at national parks is painstaking work
SALT LAKE CITY — A series of graffiti-like paintings on rocks in national parks across the West set off a furor on social media this month, angering people who say they desecrated some of the nation’s most famously picturesque landscapes. They’ve also created a headache for park managers who have the delicate task of cleaning up the sites without causing further damage.
It won’t be easy to get rid of the paintings, photos of which were posted on Instagram and Tumblr and then picked up by hiking blogs. Sandblasting and some chemical strippers can cause even more damage to irreplaceable natural features, especially if graffiti is near ancient rock art.
In some cases, workers use plastic kitchen spatulas to painstakingly scrape off paint. Workers test different chemicals to figure out which will loosen the material without damaging rock, then rinse it off with lots of low-pressure hot water, gently scraping each layer away with the spatula, said National Park Service spokesman Jason Olson.
“They will repeat that as often as it takes until they remove all the paint or until they can’t remove any more,” he said. He didn’t know Friday how much it might cost to remove the paint in eight parks across California, Colorado, Utah and Oregon. One colorful painting of a woman with blue hair at Crater Lake National Park is already covered in ice and snow and workers might not be able to reach it until next summer.
Casey Nocket, the 21-year-old suspect identified by the park service this week, allegedly used acrylic paint and signed with the handle “creepytings.” Attempts to reach Nocket were unsuccessful. A phone listing for her was disconnected and her social media accounts have been shut down or made private.
Gas to be under $3 for 1st time in 4 years: Why, what it means, and how it compares to milk
NEW YORK — The sight is so surprising that Americans are sharing photos of it, along with all those cute Halloween costumes, sweeping vistas and special meals: The gas station sign, with a price of $2-something a gallon.
“It’s stunning what’s happening here,” says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. “I’m a little bit shocked.”
The national average price of gasoline has fallen 33 cents in October, landing Friday at $3.00, according to AAA. Kloza said the average will fall under $3 by early Saturday morning for the first time in four years.
When the national average crossed above $3 a gallon in December of 2010, drivers weren’t sure they’d ever see $2.99 again. Global demand for oil and gasoline was rising as people in developing countries bought cars by the tens of millions and turmoil was brewing in the oil-rich Middle East.
Now demand isn’t rising as fast as expected, drillers have learned to tap vast new sources of oil, particularly in the U.S., and crude continues to flow out of the Middle East.
By wire sources