Mojave Dessert, California - (Ass Mess): The Virgin Galactic disaster on Thursday has been blamed on copycat design flaws that saw the January 1986 destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger according to aerospace loss adjustors.
Madcap Virgin aerospace designer Burt Rutan who was responsible for the SpaceShipTwo prototype bombing and causing the deaths of three engineers, has been sacked from the venture.
His ideas were once said to be so exciting that NASA and Russian aerospace concerns actually headhunted him before he was recruited by Branson's Virgin Intergalactic Space Travel Group.
Described as a maverick genius, Rutan was the daftass brains behind the development of the rockets which blew up on Thursday causing multiple deaths and widespread injuries among engineering staff working on the prototype.
This weekend Branson is said to be livid having personally lost over £300 million in the failed venture.
This does not include the £100 million in advance ticket sales which promised punters the chance to be among the world's first commercial space flight passengers.
On Monday he faces losing his US aerospace development licence as NASA officials meet to block any further disastrous research by the Virgin Group.
Serves him right.
