Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket crashed during a test flight over the Mojave Desert Friday, killing at least one of the two pilots aboard and seriously injuring the other.

The company tweeted that SpaceShipTwo was flying under rocket power and then tweeted that it had "experienced an in-flight anomaly."

"During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo," Virgin Galactic tweeted, adding the mothership landed safely.

The California Highway Patrol reported one fatality and one major injury. SpaceShipTwo is typically flown by two pilots.

Authorities said that the aircraft's co-pilot was killed in the crash, while the pilot, who ejected, was injured, according to Reuters. Citing Kern County Sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt, Reuters reported that the pilot was found at the scene and taken to a local hospital.

Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the crash, said the space tourism craft exploded after it was released from WhiteKnightTwo, the 'mothership' plane that carries it to a high altitude.

"I could see that it was tumbling, and it wasn't one piece," Brown told Fox News's Shepard Smith.

Parachutes were reportedly seen in the air, according to SpaceFlightNow.com, which said that the "anomaly" apparently occurred after the plane fired its rocket motor following a high-altitude drop from WhiteKnightTwo.

"We will work closely with the relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident and provide updates ASAP," tweeted Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FoxNews.com.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/10/31/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-suffers-in-flight-anomaly-553581797/

Another issue we can point the finger at Obama on. He had no business canceling the Space Shuttle Program, manned and unmanned NASA space missions.

We have no capability to get to the ISS, which we are one of the largest contributors financially and astronaut wise to the ISS and now we have to rely on Russia (Who would screw us in a heart beat potentially leaving one of our people up there or not being able to get out in an emergency.

Once again Obama was\is depending on technology or capabilities we don't have yet (In this case it is the private space industry who aren't even close for our needs). They have had two crashes In the past three days, one of them fatal and not to mention all of the other failures by the private space industry.

You would think that Barry would learn not to do something like this UNTIL we had a reusable launch and return vehicle and space craft.

We need to get Congress to start holding Uncle Barry accountable.

Barry was against the space program from the beginning. He cut NASA's budget by billions.

One supply rocket that blew up this week was using a Russian motor.

SpaceShip Two was a unique Burt Rutan design that had high hopes to the be the way tourists were going to space. I hope it flies again.