Michael Tyner Alsbury (March 19, 1975 – October 31, 2014) was an American test pilot for

Scaled Composites Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to d ...

. He died on October 31, 2014, during test flight PF04 of the

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and opera ...

SpaceShipTwo The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) was an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It was manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo was ...

VSS ''Enterprise''.

Personal life

Michael was born to Rich and Linda Alsbury in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

, but grew up in

Scotts Valley, California Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about south of downtown San Jose and north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2020 census, the city populati ...

, graduating from Soquel High School as a valedictorian in 1993. He was an Eagle Scout, and also played soccer at a young age. Alsbury was a flying enthusiast since childhood, achieving his pilot's license at the age of 23. He graduated from

California Polytechnic State University California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or Cal Poly) is a public university in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States, - Cites the location of the university and shows that the university ...

San Luis Obispo ; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...

with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

Aeronautical Engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

. Immediately out of college, Alsbury began work at

. He was married to Michelle Saling, whom he had met at Cal Poly, for 12 years and had two children, aged 7 and 10 at the time of his death, living in Tehachapi. Some of his other pastimes included fly fishing and supporting the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

Career

Alsbury joined Scaled Composites in 2001 and began working as a project engineer and pilot. In April 2013, he served as copilot to

Mark Stucky Mark P. "Forger" Stucky (born 9 November 1958) is an American test pilot and commercial astronaut. In these roles, he was an employee of Virgin Galactic, a private spaceflight company which is developing sub-orbital space tourism flights. On ...

on the first powered flight for VSS ''Enterprise'' and SpaceShipTwo. At the time of his death, he had 1800 flight hours, 1600 of them as a test pilot and engineer with Scaled Composites. In 2013, he received the Ray E. Tenhoff Award for the most outstanding technical paper at the

Society of Experimental Test Pilots The Society of Experimental Test Pilots is an international organization that seeks to promote air safety and contributes to aeronautical advancement by promoting sound aeronautical design and development; interchanging ideas, thoughts and sugges ...

symposium along with Mark Stucky and Clint Nichols. On October 31, 2014, Alsbury was test flying the

, VSS ''Enterprise'' with

Peter Siebold Peter Siebold (born 1971) is a member of the Scaled Composites astronaut team. He is their Director of Flight Operations, and was one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo, the experimental spaceplanes developed by the company ...

. The craft broke up in-flight, resulting in a total loss of VSS ''Enterprise'', which crashed in the California

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

. Alsbury was unable to exit the spacecraft, and his remains were found still strapped to his seat in the fuselage. The pilot, Peter Siebold, survived. It was the ninth time that Alsbury had flown aboard the aircraft.

Legacy

On November 4, 2014, episode 5 of

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

's ''

Human Universe ''Human Universe'' is a British television series broadcast on BBC Two, presented by Professor Brian Cox. An accompanying book was also published. Episodes 1. "Apeman – Spaceman" First broadcast: 9:00 pm, 7 Oct 2014 on BBC T ...

'', presented by Brian Cox, was dedicated to Alsbury, as it had a sequence on Virgin Galactic test pilot David Mackay. His name was added to the

Space Mirror Memorial The Space Mirror Memorial, which forms part of the larger Astronauts Memorial, is a National Memorial on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Merritt Island, Florida. It is maintained by the Astronauts Memorial Foun ...

in 2020. He was posthumously awarded the FAA Commercial Astronaut Wings in 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alsbury, Michael 1975 births 2014 deaths Accidental deaths in California American test pilots Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in the United States California Polytechnic State University alumni Commercial astronauts Scaled Composites Space program fatalities Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2014 Victims of flight test accidents Virgin Galactic