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Boeing's Starliner Crew Flight Test delayed again, path forward unclear
- TaylorAlexander 2y agoI see the jobs program continues apace…
- ceejayoz 2y agoThis one ain't a jobs program; Boeing has already taken significant losses and continues to do so. The Commercial Cargo and Crew missions were unusual in being fixed cost contracts; they're already almost $2B in the hole. https://spacenews.com/boeing-records-more-losses-from-starliner-delays/ https://spacenews.com/boeing-records-more-losses-from-starli... They're well and truly fucked here.
- JohnClark1337 2y ago[dead]
- bell-cot 2y agoIt's now 4 1/2 years since Starliner's nearly-disastrous first (uncrewed) test flight, 4 years since SpaceX's successful crewed test flight, and 2 years since Starliner's second (uncrewed) test flight. At what point does NASA need to pull the plug on Starliner, and start looking for second-source Earth-LEO passenger service from companies which can actually do the d*mned job?
- ceejayoz 2y ago> At what point does NASA need to pull the plug on Starliner... At this point, I assume they're not doing so as a punishment. It doesn't cost NASA much to keep Boeing's feet to the fire here.
- macnetic 2y agoCommercial Crew is fixed-price contracts, whereas cost-plus contracts has been the norm in the US aerospace industry. Boeing is the one bleeding money here.
- ceejayoz 2y agoLike I said, it doesn't cost them much. It's not zero cost - people have to talk to Boeing, yell at them when things are broken, review fixes and proposals, etc.
- bell-cot 2y agoIf NASA's real goal is to have a reliable second-source provider, and their endless futzing around with Boeing is incompatible with that (due to limited NASA staffing, politics, or whatever) - then keeping Boeing's feet to the fire does carry high costs for NASA.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI suspect they think of it like a lottery ticket - there's a small but slim chance that Boeing eventually spends enough billions fixing it that it successfully flies. All NASA has to do is staff enough folks to go "nope fix that too"; the lion's share of the costs are Boeing's.
- bell-cot 2y agoSadly, "it successfully flies" is quite different from "it is a reliable second source, over time".
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoStarliner remains the single project that keeps SLS from wearing the stupidest NASA project crown.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoSLS is still the king in that respect, IMO. Starliner is only going to waste a couple of billion dollars. If it never flies Boeing will only get paid for half the project, and if it does fly it'll be overpriced but still do something useful. OTOH, SLS + Orion are likely going to waste an astounding $100B dollars. And not deliver much useful -- Starship is going to the moon from Earth anyways, why not just put the astronauts on Starship to begin with instead of delivering them with SLS + Orion?
- resolutebat 2y agoI'd award that hotly contested prize to Lunar Gateway.
- metadat 2y ago> The Crew Flight Test of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is no longer targeting Saturday, May 25. We're awaiting official word from NASA and Boeing on the next possible launch date and for more information regarding the path forward on the helium leak. What happened to good or even okay spacecraft design? A good design would mean this is easy to troubleshoot and would not impact the launch date because it could be fixed well ahead of time. How was the U.S. / NASA so much more successful in space 50 years ago compared to today? It was a scrappier time, to say the least.
- tim333 2y ago>How was the U.S. / NASA so much more successful in space 50 years The US is doing great over at SpaceX. It's just Boeing who are kind of crap these days. Quite a lot is explained if you listen to Musk on the founding of SpaceX around 5:20 where he is talking about a small team of top engineers and not much management. Boeing is I think not like that https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1791029436651102240 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1791029436651102240
- atrus 2y agoNASA has had spectacular success though...just with SpaceX, who got half the money Boeing did to develop a human rated craft.
- metadat 2y agoThat's not NASA doing anything, though. In fact it's NASA doing nothing except saying what they want to a genie. Rub rub.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> That's not NASA doing anything COTS was a risky paradigm shift. And SpaceX continues to extensively use NASA resources, to say nothing of building on its decades of work.
- asadotzler 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]