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It's almost comical at this point. The Commercial Crew Program was started as a replacement for the space shuttle, to have an option to get Astronauts to the IS
by wongarsu 3y ago
It's almost comical at this point. The Commercial Crew Program was started as a replacement for the space shuttle, to have an option to get Astronauts to the ISS without relying on Russia. The initial goal was to begin service in 2017, and for that two providers were chosen: the reliable and experienced aerospace company Boeing, and the new upstart SpaceX. Back in 2011 the SpaceX choice seemed risky.
As expected both had some delays, but SpaceX had their first crewed test flight in March of 2020, with regular flights starting in November of the same year. Meanwhile Boeing's Starliner continues to be always just six months away.
- hef19898 3y agoNobody has a monopoly of promising something in 6 months. Boeing really isn't what it was once. A pitty, really.
- entropicgravity 3y agoLet this be a lesson to those on the boards of tech companies. It's not necessarily horrible to chose a new CEO that has an MBA degree but also be sure that he has an engineering degree. An MBA only CEO in tech is almost always a poor out come, as in the case of Boeing.
- hef19898 3y agoCounter example of engineering CEOs: VW, continiously uphold as a shining example of tech prowness, especially HN.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoWhen I think of building an engineering first company, Bosch comes to mind. Great products, great engineering, solid governance that prevents someone from ruining the org by strip mining it for short term gain.
- hef19898 3y agoBosch is a good example, for sure. Except their involvement in the Diesel scandal. Otherwise, I agree, you basically never hear anything bad. And from my experience working with, not for, their white and household goods branch, they are good. Never heard anything bad. Edit: Just realized my comment mihht sound snarky regarding Bosch. It isn't, after all Bosch had less antitrust and compliance scandals and penalties than any of my employers except two: Amazon (which didn't really have any as far as I can tell from top of my head) and my own failed start up, which didn't ajve any neither. All others? Multiple antitrust actions, compliance scandals and multi millions, if not billions, in penalties.
- plorg 3y agoI want this to be true, but is it actually relevant here? The previous Boeing CEO had his bachelor's and graduate degrees in engineering and made decisions that were bad for both business and engineering reasons.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoNote that SpaceX was not paid to begin service in 2017. Commercial Crew funding was cut by Congress. We will never know if SpaceX could have begun flying in 2017 if they had received the full funding. It's unlikely they could have, but we'll never know. What is sure is that the delayed funding delayed Dragon's first crewed flight. SpaceX did not hit a good operational cadence flying Falcon9 until about 2017, so was a severely cash constrained operation.