I was wondering about that too, I have seen several news reports stating that neither pilot was wearing a pressure suit. If this is the case it's surprising one even survived
although there are accounts of an F8 pilot having bailed from about 46000 feet."The pilots were not wearing pressure suits, only masks providing supplemental oxygen. At 50,000 feet and more, conditions are equivalent to space, and fluids in the human body begin to boil turn from liquid to gas. The velocity of the surrounding jetstream upon breakup or ejection would have caused loss of their masks and any oxygen possibly
carried with them." www.universetoday.com Robert At 10:59 PM 11/1/2014, you wrote:
On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 8:44 PM, Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:> I don't believe SS2 had ejection seats, by the way. The pilots had pressure> suits, and parachutes, but escape was either via the hatch or via being > lucky enough to survive cabin breakup. (I'd guess there was simply no > practical way to engineer in useful ejection seats within the vehicle size, > weight, and budget constraints.) > > Chutes and suits is still far better than no chance - one out of two, in > this instance. I was under the impression that the crew did not have pressure suits, per [1], though it would be good to see a more authoritative reference either way. Henry[1] http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/10/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-fails-test-flight/
