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Boeing to ground Starliner indefinitely until valve issue solved

jpgvm 5y ago
Lucky NASA pushed hard to have SpaceX as a second source or would still be waiting for human rated spacecraft.
- garmaine 5y ago
  You mean thankfully SpaceX sued NASA for the right to compete and won.
  - apendleton 5y ago
    That was a different program, COTS (which never involved Boeing). SpaceX has been a contract recipient for Commercial Crew since the beginning.
    - garmaine 5y ago
      Thank you for the correction!
dylan604 5y ago
How much of this is a total surprise that it is happening vs somebody thought somewhere this was totally likely but was forced to go through the processes anyways because deadlines and keeping up appearances? Also, pressure because SpaceX is kicking everyone's ass? My money is there's a group of engineers that were desperately hoping for something else to go wrong before it got to their part.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Back when the contracts were initially awarded the prevailing opinion was that SpaceX was the risky play that might pay off with something useful; and that Boeing/Lockheed/WhateverMilIndustComplexMerger would be expensive but at least produce something safe and known to work if slow and expensive. As has been proven by the commercial aircraft wing; the 'reverse acquisition' ~2 decades ago put the accountants and MBA types in charge and effectively gutted the engineering, safety, and 'built it right then apply a price tag' culture the company used to have in decades past.
dnautics 5y ago
IATA but it's mildly exiting to see one of my decadal hn predictions inch closer to coming true, a year and a half in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21943167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21943167
- truth_hurts_0x1 5y ago
  It's interesting to think how astronauts had little qualms about hopping in space craft designed in the 1960s on drafting tables. Yet with the insane leaps in engineering we've made since then, it almost feels like it be hard to replicate the same leaps in space travel that we saw from the 1950s to 1980s.
- mkl 5y ago
  > Aside from one time when I correctly predicted my coworker's house would be under a volcano in 15 years I'm amazed no one in that thread asked you for details about this. What happened?
  - dnautics 5y ago
    2003, was working in a science lab, lab tech came in and said he (or maybe it was his brother) had just bought a house, really cheap, in hawaii. He said it was in lanikai estates. Family is from hawaii and I'm a bit of a geography geek, so I hopped onto mapquest to see where it was... Noticed it was due east of pu'u o'o, and I know the volcano is moving east, so I told him, look you have 10-15 years to sell that house before it winds up under a volcano. Fast forward 15 years and volcano! The volcano just snuck in under my time window, haha. To be fair, I do not know for sure if HIS house went under; there are houses in the neighborhood that were spared. I didn't bother to ask because when I stalked him it said he was an employee of Theranos, and I decided it was probably not a good idea to poke a hornet's nest. Speaking of Theranos, back when I was in my 2nd postdoc (2013) we were talking about how theranos was a fraud and it was going to come crumbling down, Some other crazy short term things I predicted: Sarah Palin VP candidate, Feb 2008, Simone Giertz becoming famous (ca winter 2015). I also predicted the failure of the first starliner launch (documented here in HN). I also have managed to pick some ascendant "obscure" PLs just before hockey sticking. Used Julia professionally in 2015 (proof of use in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0Y1uAA-2Y&t=53m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0Y1uAA-2Y&t=53m), used Elixir in 2017, been using Zig since 2019. And I haven't really used any other non-mainstream PLs, so I have a pretty good hit record I think. And a couple of obscure cryptos that I don't want to talk too much about.
Clewza313 5y ago
In a sane world, NASA would be cutting their losses and pulling all funding from Boeing around now, since it's already beyond clear that Starliner is not going be better than SpaceX's offerings on any meaningful metric. Unfortunately there's little sane about NASA's funding and contracting process, unless you look at it from a pork barreling politician's perspective.
- croutonwagon 5y ago
  I think they are so far down the sunken cost fallacy its both unbelievable and a hard call to make to be honest. I know SpaceX is capitalizing on the bad news, but they do have a history of being aggressive with the promises and hitting delays, but no where NEAR the magnitude of boeing.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    As with so many things, the time derivative is what's important. SpaceX is only getting better. Boeing is only getting worse.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider. Has Boeng successfully gotten to the point where SSC could not? I grew up in the area where the tunnels were being built, and I know there was a mad rush to get a certain % completed so it made more sense and cents to complete rather than kill it. So I guess that's at least one success Starliner can brag about?
  - evandwight 5y ago
    I thought it was a fixed price contract, but apparently nasa has been paying them above that. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/nasa-report-finds-boeing-seat-prices-are-60-higher-than-spacex/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/nasa-report-finds-bo...
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    I don't think SpaceX delays are anything unusual for the aerospace industry. SpaceX will claim 2 years and hit 4 years; industry standard is to claim 10 years and take 20.
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bane 5y ago
This is an incredible laboratory of process and methodology: compare "design -> build" to "iterate as fast as possible". While software spent a few decades slaved to traditional engineering approach (building a bridge), R&D like this, even in hardware, has proven to do well at incremental development approaches. We had a few hints of this with how Apple produces things...but it never leaked out into the rest of the world until SpaceX literally started building a spaceship factory out in the open.
travisgriggs 5y ago
I have worked at a few projects at a few companies and I’ve seen some interesting cycles over the years. The pattern I’m thinking of goes something like: * motivated/passionate/skilled engineers/builders/scientists make a thing happen * what starts out as a healthy balance between doer/creators and business/decider/facilitators slowly tips towards the latter * economic cycles and other disruptive actions cause the passionate engineers that make things happen to depart to other pastures * management/business continues to consolidate decision making prerogative and fails to realize that they are left with engineers of a more compliant ilk (not necessarily worse, just more willing to do as told and less incline to exercise risk taking initiative) * progress slows to a trickle I’m curious if anyone with insider information can speak to the possibility that this has happened in Boeing’s space division. The symptoms seem similar from afar. Like others, I wish the engineers success from afar, because I would really want to succeed in an endeavor like this. But I know sometimes the engineers can become largely a body of people just willing to get the days tasks completed and that’s enough for them.
- ohazi 5y ago
  > I’m curious if anyone with insider information can speak to the possibility that this has happened in Boeing’s space division. s/in Boeing’s space division/at Boeing/ There's also the MCAS fiasco on the 737 MAX.
- anonLL77 5y ago
  Boeing is an engineering and manufacturing company, that is the culture. There are a lot of false narratives out there about Boeing's internal culture being a bunch of bean counters, etc. Of course there are pockets inside any large company that may not be ideal and mistakes are made in the development of any complex system. In my experience, however, Boeing is filled with dedicated engineering professionals trying to do the right thing in the face of increasing complexity. Sometimes there are structural problems in an organization and you get bad results despite everybody's best efforts. Boeing, like the government, has a lot of antiquated heavy weight processes that slow development down. As a field matures, it gets more complex, many past mistakes result in new processes to follow. Eventually, it is cruft that is difficult to remove and hard to navigate. Overtime, this increases development costs and slows projects down. Personally, probably the most difficult thing I've experienced is moving towards iterative processes (away from waterfall) and having a government customer wanting to support it but not really being able to. For example, if one were to begin to develop/evolve a complex system, the government about half way through would want a list of materials so they can be reviewed for a variety or purposes. Well, in an evolving system, this list is generally everchanging as people learn more about the domain and are able to make better choices over time. Something as simple as a list of materials can create all kinds of headaches. I could probably give a dozen or so examples where the government wants to, but cannot interface with modern engineering programs and practices. I also know that both the government and Boeing are trying to change, but it is difficult to change direction when so much of a large behemoth is made to work a certain way.
AniseAbyss 5y ago
I was reading up a bit on Boeing and it seems that their best days were in the 1960s and 70s. Just coasting on past successes. Luckily for them they literally cannot fail because their competitors simply don't have the production capabilities to take over- Airbus has a massive backlog.
unit486 5y ago
I am an engineer without aerospace experience. However, In my experience, when several identical valves fail in the same service enviromment, you have made a design mistake. Valves with packing leaks make it a sophomoric design error. Yet, this craft was ready to launch. What else might wrong with it?

Lucky NASA pushed hard to have SpaceX as a second source or would still be waiting for human rated spacecraft.

garmaine 5y ago
You mean thankfully SpaceX sued NASA for the right to compete and won.
- apendleton 5y ago
  That was a different program, COTS (which never involved Boeing). SpaceX has been a contract recipient for Commercial Crew since the beginning.
  - garmaine 5y ago
    Thank you for the correction!

How much of this is a total surprise that it is happening vs somebody thought somewhere this was totally likely but was forced to go through the processes anyways because deadlines and keeping up appearances? Also, pressure because SpaceX is kicking everyone's ass? My money is there's a group of engineers that were desperately hoping for something else to go wrong before it got to their part.

mjevans 5y ago
Back when the contracts were initially awarded the prevailing opinion was that SpaceX was the risky play that might pay off with something useful; and that Boeing/Lockheed/WhateverMilIndustComplexMerger would be expensive but at least produce something safe and known to work if slow and expensive. As has been proven by the commercial aircraft wing; the 'reverse acquisition' ~2 decades ago put the accountants and MBA types in charge and effectively gutted the engineering, safety, and 'built it right then apply a price tag' culture the company used to have in decades past.

dnautics 5y ago

IATA but it's mildly exiting to see one of my decadal hn predictions inch closer to coming true, a year and a half in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21943167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21943167

truth_hurts_0x1 5y ago
It's interesting to think how astronauts had little qualms about hopping in space craft designed in the 1960s on drafting tables. Yet with the insane leaps in engineering we've made since then, it almost feels like it be hard to replicate the same leaps in space travel that we saw from the 1950s to 1980s.
mkl 5y ago
> Aside from one time when I correctly predicted my coworker's house would be under a volcano in 15 years I'm amazed no one in that thread asked you for details about this. What happened?
- dnautics 5y ago
  2003, was working in a science lab, lab tech came in and said he (or maybe it was his brother) had just bought a house, really cheap, in hawaii. He said it was in lanikai estates. Family is from hawaii and I'm a bit of a geography geek, so I hopped onto mapquest to see where it was... Noticed it was due east of pu'u o'o, and I know the volcano is moving east, so I told him, look you have 10-15 years to sell that house before it winds up under a volcano. Fast forward 15 years and volcano! The volcano just snuck in under my time window, haha. To be fair, I do not know for sure if HIS house went under; there are houses in the neighborhood that were spared. I didn't bother to ask because when I stalked him it said he was an employee of Theranos, and I decided it was probably not a good idea to poke a hornet's nest. Speaking of Theranos, back when I was in my 2nd postdoc (2013) we were talking about how theranos was a fraud and it was going to come crumbling down, Some other crazy short term things I predicted: Sarah Palin VP candidate, Feb 2008, Simone Giertz becoming famous (ca winter 2015). I also predicted the failure of the first starliner launch (documented here in HN). I also have managed to pick some ascendant "obscure" PLs just before hockey sticking. Used Julia professionally in 2015 (proof of use in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0Y1uAA-2Y&t=53m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0Y1uAA-2Y&t=53m), used Elixir in 2017, been using Zig since 2019. And I haven't really used any other non-mainstream PLs, so I have a pretty good hit record I think. And a couple of obscure cryptos that I don't want to talk too much about.

Clewza313 5y ago

In a sane world, NASA would be cutting their losses and pulling all funding from Boeing around now, since it's already beyond clear that Starliner is not going be better than SpaceX's offerings on any meaningful metric. Unfortunately there's little sane about NASA's funding and contracting process, unless you look at it from a pork barreling politician's perspective.

croutonwagon 5y ago
I think they are so far down the sunken cost fallacy its both unbelievable and a hard call to make to be honest. I know SpaceX is capitalizing on the bad news, but they do have a history of being aggressive with the promises and hitting delays, but no where NEAR the magnitude of boeing.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  As with so many things, the time derivative is what's important. SpaceX is only getting better. Boeing is only getting worse.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider. Has Boeng successfully gotten to the point where SSC could not? I grew up in the area where the tunnels were being built, and I know there was a mad rush to get a certain % completed so it made more sense and cents to complete rather than kill it. So I guess that's at least one success Starliner can brag about?
- evandwight 5y ago
  I thought it was a fixed price contract, but apparently nasa has been paying them above that. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/nasa-report-finds-boeing-seat-prices-are-60-higher-than-spacex/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/nasa-report-finds-bo...
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  I don't think SpaceX delays are anything unusual for the aerospace industry. SpaceX will claim 2 years and hit 4 years; industry standard is to claim 10 years and take 20.

deleted 5y ago

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deleted 5y ago

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bane 5y ago

This is an incredible laboratory of process and methodology: compare "design -> build" to "iterate as fast as possible". While software spent a few decades slaved to traditional engineering approach (building a bridge), R&D like this, even in hardware, has proven to do well at incremental development approaches. We had a few hints of this with how Apple produces things...but it never leaked out into the rest of the world until SpaceX literally started building a spaceship factory out in the open.

travisgriggs 5y ago

I have worked at a few projects at a few companies and I’ve seen some interesting cycles over the years. The pattern I’m thinking of goes something like: * motivated/passionate/skilled engineers/builders/scientists make a thing happen * what starts out as a healthy balance between doer/creators and business/decider/facilitators slowly tips towards the latter * economic cycles and other disruptive actions cause the passionate engineers that make things happen to depart to other pastures * management/business continues to consolidate decision making prerogative and fails to realize that they are left with engineers of a more compliant ilk (not necessarily worse, just more willing to do as told and less incline to exercise risk taking initiative) * progress slows to a trickle I’m curious if anyone with insider information can speak to the possibility that this has happened in Boeing’s space division. The symptoms seem similar from afar. Like others, I wish the engineers success from afar, because I would really want to succeed in an endeavor like this. But I know sometimes the engineers can become largely a body of people just willing to get the days tasks completed and that’s enough for them.

ohazi 5y ago
> I’m curious if anyone with insider information can speak to the possibility that this has happened in Boeing’s space division. s/in Boeing’s space division/at Boeing/ There's also the MCAS fiasco on the 737 MAX.
anonLL77 5y ago
Boeing is an engineering and manufacturing company, that is the culture. There are a lot of false narratives out there about Boeing's internal culture being a bunch of bean counters, etc. Of course there are pockets inside any large company that may not be ideal and mistakes are made in the development of any complex system. In my experience, however, Boeing is filled with dedicated engineering professionals trying to do the right thing in the face of increasing complexity. Sometimes there are structural problems in an organization and you get bad results despite everybody's best efforts. Boeing, like the government, has a lot of antiquated heavy weight processes that slow development down. As a field matures, it gets more complex, many past mistakes result in new processes to follow. Eventually, it is cruft that is difficult to remove and hard to navigate. Overtime, this increases development costs and slows projects down. Personally, probably the most difficult thing I've experienced is moving towards iterative processes (away from waterfall) and having a government customer wanting to support it but not really being able to. For example, if one were to begin to develop/evolve a complex system, the government about half way through would want a list of materials so they can be reviewed for a variety or purposes. Well, in an evolving system, this list is generally everchanging as people learn more about the domain and are able to make better choices over time. Something as simple as a list of materials can create all kinds of headaches. I could probably give a dozen or so examples where the government wants to, but cannot interface with modern engineering programs and practices. I also know that both the government and Boeing are trying to change, but it is difficult to change direction when so much of a large behemoth is made to work a certain way.

AniseAbyss 5y ago

I was reading up a bit on Boeing and it seems that their best days were in the 1960s and 70s. Just coasting on past successes. Luckily for them they literally cannot fail because their competitors simply don't have the production capabilities to take over- Airbus has a massive backlog.

unit486 5y ago

I am an engineer without aerospace experience. However, In my experience, when several identical valves fail in the same service enviromment, you have made a design mistake. Valves with packing leaks make it a sophomoric design error. Yet, this craft was ready to launch. What else might wrong with it?