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Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
- Dalewyn 2y agoNote: The problem that scrubbed the launch has to do with a valve on the Atlas V's upper stage, nothing to do with Starliner. Sensationalist headline is sensationalist, correct in the best kind of correct.
- tekla 2y agoThere is nothing sensationalist. The flight was scrubbed. The headline didn't make any mention of the reason, the fact is literally, the flight attempt was a scrub.
- Dalewyn 2y agoIt's definitely accurate to the facts, but twisted to try and paint a certain narrative given the current trends. Technically correct, the best kind of correct. The headline could be an infinite number of ways more descriptive instead of riding on the coattails of the Boeing bash bandwagon: "ULA scrubs launch of first crewed Boeing Starliner due to faulty valve in Atlas V." "Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed due to faulty valve in launch vehicle." etc.
- pfdietz 2y agoI call bullshit on you. It was a perfectly fine headline. That they've tied Starliner to Atlas 5 is not something that was forced on them, so Boeing and Starliner gets to own the consequences.
- Dalewyn 2y ago[flagged]
- redserk 2y agoIn case it hasn’t been obvious, Boeing has been in the news over the last few months for various airplane defects. I fail to see how it’s unreasonable to believe a journalist wouldn’t want to utilize the negative undertones of the Boeing name here, considering this would not an unusual pattern to utilize for headline writing.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoIt's misleading. The issue was with the ULA launch.
- tekla 2y agoHow is it misleading? The mission was crewed Starliner and it was scrubbed. ULA wasn't mentioned. Also Boeing is 50% ULA.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoMisleading according to who?
- gnabgib 2y agoPreviously [0] (4 points) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40281176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40281176
- foreverobama 2y ago[dead]
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020. How is it that SpaceX was able to accomplish the same thing in a fraction of the time, esp considering Boeing has been building aircraft for a century? Granted it's not the same thing as rockets, but still, with all the aerospace engineering talent that Boeing must already have had ... Did SpaceX poach all of Boeing/Airbus' best people?
- nolongerthere 2y agoLikely sunk cost fallacy. Space flight is still new enough that starting from scratch lets you use all the lessons that were learned from your predecessors while not getting stuck in the muck of institutional inertia. And you still aren't that far behind the more experienced competition. Unlike say, a commodity like candles that doesn't have anything new to discover, and the existing manufactures cannot be out innovated.
- necheffa 2y agoNot to mention the bureaucracy tax; Boeing has had far more time to let the bureaucracy metastasize.
- irjustin 2y ago> Did SpaceX poach all of Boeing/Airbus' best people? Definitely part of the reason. They did poach a lot of good people. SpaceX vs Gov Contractors been the war cry of those who believe Private >> Contractors. Everything Elon has done for SpaceX has been absolutely relentless, and razor focused on the goal. This includes being willing to sacrifice individual's life-balance for the mission. Combine all that with a willingness to do fast iteration and break things where it's "safe" to do so. You've got the ability to disrupt an industry/ecosystem that's gotten lazy and fat over time. To be clear, Private >> Contractors is not 100% nor is the flip. There are too many examples of both directions either working or not working.
- renewiltord 2y agoThe funny thing is that Elon Musk promised us Mars and gave us orbit for cheaper than ever before. Boeing in its various incarnations has promised us orbit and given us nothing for just as expensive as before. Some people like to optimize for delta between promise and delivery. I think I like it when just delivery is optimized. There's really only one space company in the US today, and perhaps if there were other people like Elon Musk around there'd be more. Instead, the experts who have been doing this for half a century suck balls while the newcomer from a software engineering background who didn't stay in his lane made it.
- ipnon 2y agoI'd rather hate Elon Musk on Mars than love Boeing on Earth.
- dotnet00 2y agoSpaceX may be by far the most prominent of the new space companies, but many smaller companies, especially Rocketlab are also punching above their weight relative to the old guard. The issue was that all the incentives for Boeing were to stagnate. The government would happily sign blank checks to them as long as they kept saying "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand". It took SpaceX coming around and showing results to prove that while space is hard, it isn't as difficult and slow as old space would have liked us to continue believing.
- phkahler 2y ago>> "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand" There's a fantastic clip out there where Gwynne Shotwell is asked by someone (I think in congress) how they are able to launch so cheap. Her answer was approximately "I don't know how to build a four hundred million dollar rocket."
- tw04 2y agoI don’t think that’s really a fair assessment. Yes Space-X has had the most launches and gets the most press, but the US has a very healthy launch industry. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-companies-of-2022-the-ars-technica-power-ranking/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-compan...
- irjustin 2y agoGlad this is happening. ULA is a good launch provider even if they are insanely expensive vs SpaceX. Yes, Elon is right, SpaceX did it cheaper, faster everything that you'd dream of. But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket. That said - I do wish Boeing+ULA would get it's act together. Because nearly 80%+ cost to the tax payer for hedging is quite expensive. US Gov definitely enables this. I've said contradicting statements. My conclusion is, this is overall net positive even if pricy.
- schiffern 2y ago>But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket. Funny how it used to be SpaceX making this argument, and ULA was fighting tooth-and-nail for "sole source" as cheaper. :-\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA I don't see SpaceX pushing to discontinue ULA's contract, so it would seem they're at least treating ULA better than ULA treated them. Competition is good, I agree.
- yarg 2y agoSpaceX was a threat to ULA, and ULA knew it. But is ULA any sort of threat to SpaceX? If I were Musk, I'd want them sticking around just to make me look good.
- somenameforme 2y agoULA (a largely anticompetitive merger of Boeing and Lockheed for those who don't know) was actively and patronizingly taunting SpaceX during their efforts at reuse, making comments along the lines of 'We tried reuse. The economics just don't work out. Good luck learning what we already did.' He (Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA) seemed to be under the impression that reuse was only possible Space Shuttle style, which was them essentially "refurbishing" engines to the point of rebuilding them after each launch, and claiming it was reuse. There's every reason to believe that this is also exactly what they genuinely believed - that SpaceX was just going to be a failed gimmick. They made 0 efforts to try to ensure they stayed technologically ahead of SpaceX, in spite of having many orders of magnitude greater resources and manpower available to themselves. They simply watched, mocked, and became obsolete. In any case ULA's not going anywhere. Boeing and Lockheed are both major arms dealers that the US government depends on to keep the bombs flying.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- speedylight 2y agoTo be honest I wouldn’t ride a scooter made by Boeing let alone a spaceship, they messed up too much too fast lately.
- Hypocritelefty 2y ago[flagged]
- jajko 2y agoPlease refrain from personal attacks, its against the rules and generally seen as a basic failure to communicate your opinions in mature way. Also, I have yet to fly a single plane in Europe made by Boeing, since they started messing up badly I notice this aggressively and so far 0. Sure with small kids we do now only up to 4h flights, but we fly to other continents, and everything is Airbus or Embraer. We plan to keep it that way.
- tenlp 2y agonot sure wether Boeing would lose it's door when on space
- DonHopkins 2y agoBefore getting on that vehicle I'd want to wait a while first to make sure whistleblowers against Boeing stop dropping dead so often.
- mandeepj 2y ago> The rocket (Atlas V) boasts a success rate of 100% across 99 missions Rocket seems pretty trustworthy
- snakeyjake 2y agoBeen doing this for decades and every single day I've wished I was smart enough to solve valves.
- dylan604 2y agoThey should talk to Steam. Their Valve seems to be doing okay. /s
- twinge 2y ago"Why valves are a spacecraft engineer’s worst nightmare" is a great read about all the problems of valves[0]. There's also an interesting interview of the author worth a listen[1]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/12/why-valves-are-a-spacecraft-engineers-worst-nightmare/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/12/why-valves-are-a-spacecraf... [1] https://offnom.com/episodes/149 https://offnom.com/episodes/149
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoAtlas V + Starliner vs Falcon + Dragon is SLS + Orion vs Starship with the stupid dialled to eleven. Starliner is meant to be reusable, except its components can’t even make it through one run uneventfully [1]. It’s mated to the Atlas V, a buggy, disposable stack that’s already been EOL’d [2]. NASA’s money would be so much better spent—even now!—on literally anything else. The amount of practical redundancy provided by Starliner is zero. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Orbital_Flight_Test_2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Orbital_Flight_Test_2 [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V
- dylan604 2y agoAt least this time it wasn't scrubbed for a Starliner issue. The capsule isn't responsible for the booster's valve issues. I'm guessing the Boeing reps in capcom were wiping their brows
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> capsule isn't responsible for the booster's valve issues But Boeing is responsible for putting it on an Atlas V. Why?! There are fewer than thirty of them left! Why aren’t they practicing on a modern stack? I’ll eat my words if Starliner can rapidly transition to another booster. But given its track record in software alone, I’m incredibly sceptical.
- dylan604 2y agoProbably because Boeing is also part of ULA, so they have a vested interest in using their booster. Looks like "if it's a Boeing, I'm not going" isn't just for airplanes any more.
- richardwhiuk 2y agoIf it's worth it, they'll transition to Vulcan. But given the timeline of the ISS, unclear their will be demand.
- Laremere 2y agoFor anyone who doesn't follow rocket launches: Launch scrubs happen /constantly/. It happens to everyone, and a single scrub is not a sign of problems with a program. If it takes multiple scrubs with months of delays before it finally launches, then it'll be another thing to add on to Starliner's list of difficulties fulfilling their contract with NASA. However a scrub or two is business as usual.
- CryptoBanker 2y agoDid you read the article? It wasn’t a weather scrub. It was a faulty valve that ULA usually fixes by doing the hardware equivalent of turning it off and turning it back on again.
- pc86 2y ago> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Laremere 2y agoI did. I didn't say it was a weather scrub.
- richardwhiuk 2y agoWeather scrubs are common, and not relevant to the success of a program. GSE (Ground Servicing Equipment) are fairly common and fairly benign. Valves on the rocket? Much, much more rare, and usually indicate some form of issue.
- Diederich 2y agoFrom what was said at the scrub conference, with additional context, it was scrubbed only because of more strict rules regarding it being a manned mission. Normally they would have just recycled a valve and moved ahead with the launch. Apparently the rick here is extremely minimal.
- blackhawkC17 2y agoBoeing won a US$4.2 billion contract to complete and certify the Starliner by 2017, while SpaceX won a US$2.6 billion contract to complete and certify their crewed Dragon spacecraft. Both contracts were awarded in 2014. SpaceX flew its first full crewed mission in 2020, and Boeing can't even put together a test flight in 2024. What a bloated, underskilled contractor robbing the taxpayer blind...took 1.5x more money than SpaceX and can't even deliver anything 10 years later.
- MBCook 2y agoArs Technica just had an article about this the other day. For context: SpaceX had a “head start” because they had an existing cargo capsule they modified while Boeing was designing from scratch. Still you can add this to the pile of stuff Boeing is going through lately and it doesn’t look good at all. One more thing that’s not working out right.
- aunty_helen 2y agoBoeing had a 50 year headstart on putting things into space. Have talked to engineers from ULA and NASA, there was very much a disbelief that a. SpaceX would ever achieve a reusable rocket and that b. they would ever have a market share because the incumbents were doing so well. It's not uncommon for the aerospace industry to lose touch with reality. They consistently get told how amazing they are and budgets just keep on coming. When an actual competitor enters the market, they get caught in utter disbelief. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-...
- lupusreal 2y agoNote that SpaceX has since flown eight more crewed missions to the ISS (one is up there now), as well as four other crewed missions to orbit (not for NASA.)
- whinvik 2y agoI feel like this would just have been shrugworthy news if SpaceX didn't exist. Most NASA projects used to be like this. The problem for all the other companies is that SpaceX showed up.