Virgin Galactic colleagues remember co-pilot as ‘Renaissance man’

The pilot killed in a test flight of Virgin Galactic’s prototype space tourism rocket was as capable behind the controls of experimental aircraft as he was tackling technical challenges in the offices where the vehicle was designed. He was also known as a devoted husband and father of two young children. Michael Alsbury, 39, was “a respected and devoted colleague,” according to a statement Saturday from Scaled Composites, the company developing the spaceship for Virgin Galactic. Alsbury was co-pilot of the ill-fated test of SpaceShipTwo. His body was in wreckage found in the Mojave Desert.

Without mincing words or really embellishing anything … I consider Mike Alsbury the renaissance man. He could do it all. He was an engineer. He was a pilot. He worked well with others. He had a great sense of humour. I never heard him raise his voice or lose his cool.

Brian Binnie, another test pilot who worked at Scaled Composites for 14 years before leaving the company in February

Peter Siebold, 43, who piloted the mission and parachuted to safety, was described as alert and talking with his family and doctors. Alsbury had at least 15 years of flight experience and logged more than 1,600 hours as a test pilot and test engineer, according to a biography posted on the Society of Flight Test Engineers’ website. At Scaled Composites, Alsbury participated in the flight testing of nine different manned aircraft and co-piloted SpaceShipTwo when it broke the sound barrier during its first powered flight last year. He was also sitting in the co-pilot’s seat when the craft first dropped in 2010 from its carrier aircraft several miles above the Earth for an unpowered glide test.

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