This is a sad day for the personal spaceflight industry. Tragedy has struck our small community and our deepest sympathies and thoughts are with those involved and their families.
We are engaged in a demanding endeavor — opening the space frontier. It is not easy, but it is a goal worthy of our highest efforts. We are aware of the risks and every day we take the highest precautions. It is too early to comment on the specifics of yesterday’s events, but we can state publicly our commitments going forward:
As individuals and as an industry, we pledge that:
- We will always be open and honest to the public and our customers about the risks of our activities and about any incidents that may occur.
- If there is an incident, a proper and methodical investigation will be conducted to determine the cause.
- We will apply the lessons of the investigation now underway and work to prevent this from happening again.
- We will persevere — we believe that we can best honor those pioneers who were involved by carrying on their work.
- After the work and sacrifice of many, the space frontier is now being opened by private enterprise. As leaders of companies and organizations who are engaged in this undertaking, we are committed to striving for the highest level of safety for the public, our customers and our employees. We can do no less.
Sincerely,
- Gary Hudson, AirLaunch
- Stu Witt, Mojave Air & Space Port
- Eric Anderson, Space Adventures
- John Carmack, Armadillo Aerospace
- George French, Rocketplane-Kistler
- David Gump, Transformational Space
- Jim Benson, Benson Space Company
- Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites
- Alex Tai, Virgin Galactic
- Robert Bigelow, Bigelow Aerospace
- Mark Sirangelo, SpaceDev, Inc.
- Jeff Greason, XCOR Aerospace
- Art Dula, Excalibur Almaz
- Kelly O’Donnell, Spaceport America
- Peter Diamandis, X PRIZE Foundation
- Elon Musk, SpaceX
