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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
by 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 agoI 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 agoAs with so many things, the time derivative is what's important. SpaceX is only getting better. Boeing is only getting worse.
- dylan604 5y agoCongress 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 agoI 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 agoI 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.
- mr_toad 5y agoMajor construction projects, and software, always take longer and cost more than budgeted. If Pournelle’s law is iron, this one is concrete.
- akamaka 5y agoIf the politicians had not spurred faster development by funding competing teams, we wouldn’t be able to stand here today and label one of those teams as a loser. One team may be failing, but the broader process has clearly worked to produce revolutionary progress in our space industry.
- JPKab 5y agoAgreed, but based on my 10 years spent in defense work before escaping to startup land, Boeing and Lockheed are bloated, pathologically wasteful defect factories. Their entire business model revolves around winning contracts via paperwork and legal battles not efficiency and quality. Essentially the defense division of Boeing and Northrop Grumman and Lockheed are all rent-seeking organizations. They make extensive use of the revolving door in the military industrial complex as well and that breeds further inefficiency by constantly bringing in bureaucrats. It's utterly corrupt at the leadership level. Generals retire and are given a massive corner office which they almost never sit in, called in occasionally to play golf with another general who is not retired to cement the deal. And don't think for a second they aren't promising the general that hasn't yet retired a job as long as he goes along. That is the business model of these companies and never forget it. Boeing had their shot to make space travel cheaper and they never even tried to make it happen.
- billfruit 5y agoBoeing seems to be doing this particular launch with their own funding, as per the article. One metric in which Startliner could be different from crew dragon, is that Starliner does not splash down in the sea, rather parachutes down on land.
- irrational 5y agoDifferent, yes. But how is that better? And how hard would it be for space x to make theirs parachute down on land?
- hamburgerwah 5y agoIt is a sane world. The US government needs a legal way to funnel money to the only domestic producer of air travel in the US as foreign governments outright funnel money to foreign airline manufacturers. Starliner was never about space, it was never intended to actually leave the ground, it is a legal slush fund for Boeing. It is of crucial strategic importance that we maintain a domestic airline maker. In the US we do not have a legal way for congress to just hand companies outright free money, we use these wacky programs to do it. I ain't even mad about it.
- vosper 5y ago> Starliner was never about space, it was never intended to actually leave the ground Funneling money to Boeing is one thing, but that claim’s a stretch, surely?
- chillwaves 5y agoIf you want to nationalize an industry, why not make that argument?
- xeromal 5y agoI'm no expert but they probably flies in the face of capitalism which a large portion of senators claim they believe in.
- Johnny555 5y agoIf that's the goal, wouldn't a secret military program be more efficient? Snnce then Boeing wouldn't need to build and demonstrate a product at all.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoDon't worry. Boeing fucks up it's secret military programs too.
- hamburgerwah 5y agoWe do that too but politicians don't get as much credit for secret jobs programs.