He's 100% right with all he said and he will so be bashed for saying these things. Lean back and watch. Reality is not what people want to learn about.

Its disappointing to see a single comment blown out of context. Must be a slow news day.

135 flights. 2 total disasters killing all. sobering odds.

Crashing. If Challenger and Columbia can do it so can Virgin Galactic.

There is risk in everything. Failure is an opportunity to learn. And frankly, with a private enterprise that has a lot more to loose, they will likely not cut many corners.

It's hilarious to note that the Russians, with their old school gear, have easily the best record. Simple, low performance, reliable. The shuttle was impressive but ultimately it was a wasteful dead end that NASA didn't want. If NASA had gotten the rocket-topping, small space planes they'd wanted, we be a lot further ahead by now. Sad but true.

"failure is an opportunity to learn"... unless you're dead.

@john I believe that the Russians have had their share of mishaps. I also don't think that there issues have been fully disclosed. Esp during the space race. NASA did everything out in the open for the world to see. We only learn of Russian exploits after the fact.

So Virgin Galactic will crash a rocket plane, if it was perfectly safe it would not be worth the price. Unlike Asiana the crash won't be because the pilots had forgotten how to fly the plane.

Agree with Slowburn, if they did thousands of test flights before actual passenger flights the cost would then be astronomical (or even more astronomical I should say!). And true that commercial aircraft do so much testing before accepting passengers. I live in Cairns Australia and Jetstar have just taken delivery of Australia's first 787 Dreamliner, which they are doing test flights between Melbourne and Cairns every day for a full month before passenger services commence, despite the fact the aircraft is already operating on commercial routes outside of Australia. So it certainly would be reassuring to see Virgin's rocket plane clock up a few more test flights before going on it, however I think the risk of what could go wrong is also one of the factors that make it exciting for the first flights to go up.