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Mojave Explosion: Follow up

In total, Three men died in the accident:

Charles “Glen” May, 45
Eric Blackwell, 38
Todd Ivens, 33 died that later in the evening.

Several other employees remain hospitalized in Bakersfield, CA.

I consider the efforts towards private enterprise in space an essential part of the growth of the species. This was not something specific for space travel, it was a very serious industrial accident and rest assured that in every industry that pushes the envelope of human performance, people will probably die in that effort.

Before we start to think of the impact to ourselves, its worth taking a moment to just stand in recognition of the loss of these men. They had a choice in where they worked and what they did. As a result of a flaw or a mistake, a loose conspiracy of simple errors that spun together into a web of catastrophe; these men died.

The safe jobs were always open to them the schoool librarian, the store clerk or perhaps just maybe instead of those safe things, work with something that has never been done before. Many of us choose the former, but our lives are better because a small number of men and women who choose the latter.

They chose do do this work, this effort of "pushing the envelope" and because they made that decision, we live in a better world for it.

The human race and civilization itself depends on people who chose not to do the careful and safe thing; to go on living behind the safety that has been provided in the past by the pioneering efforts of others; it depends on those who choose against all logic to work on the frontier, choose to hack a new path out of the dark woods and make the lands on the far horizon accessible to the rest of us.

If you would like to help their families, please feel free to donate to the following location:

Scaled Family Support Fund
c/o Scaled Composites
1624 Flight Line
Mojave, CA. 93501
Acct # 04157-66832

Wire transfer ABA Routing #1220-0066-1

Please make checks payable to the account number or to the name of the fund.

He knew that we gave constant lip service to the dictates of safety and howled like Christians condemned to the arena if any compromise were made of it. He knew we were seekers after ease, suspicious, egotistic, and stubborn to a fault. He also knew that none of us would have continued our careers unless we had always been, and still were, helpless before this opportunity to take a chance.
— Ernest K. Gann

Posted @ July 29, 2007 05:25 PM | Aviation

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Posted by: jtb at July 31, 2007 12:14 PM