4 ms·
It's a nice new capsule launching on top of a 20+ year old launch system (Atlas V). It's a great accomplishment but it's not "super crazy"
by saberience 2y ago
It's a nice new capsule launching on top of a 20+ year old launch system (Atlas V).
It's a great accomplishment but it's not "super crazy"
- malfist 2y agoIt took them a decade and a half to make this thing. I think that alone speaks to the complexity of this achievement.
- saberience 2y agoI'm not shitting on Starliner, it's great that we have another person-rated capsule for spaceflight. I'm just pointing this out because there are many people apparently who are confusing Starliner for Boeing's version of Starship, i.e. a whole rocket plus crew rated capsule.
- dylan604 2y agoStarliner would be more rightly compared to Crew Dragon. Why would anyone compare to Starship?
- HWR_14 2y agoThe names are very similar.
- dylan604 2y ago[flagged]
- ericd 2y agoWell, "ocean liner" means a large oceangoing ship, "airliner" means large airplane, so people could be forgiven for thinking a "starliner" was a large spaceship and not a tiny pod.
- indoordin0saur 2y agoBut Star Dingy doesn't have the same ring to it.
- ericd 2y agoHaha zodiac would be a good fit, though.
- wubrr 2y agoLet's not forget that this is modern Boeing we're talking about... the long timeline could just be incompetence.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoHow long did it take Spacex to develop their human rated capsule? I think that was 10+ years as well
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Retric 2y agoDepends on what you consider starting. 16 years is probably the most reasonable number, but you could argue for as little as 6. Initial work on Dragon began in 2004, it ‘entered service’ in 2009, had its first mission in 2010, but first connected to the ISS in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon Work on a crewed version was officially mentioned in 2006 though they only got a contract for manned missions in 2014 and the first manned mission was 16 November 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-1
- dotnet00 2y agoIIRC it took SpaceX ~7 years. It's kind of useful perspective that when the contracts for this were being awarded, Boeing argued that SpaceX shouldn't get the contract at all because Boeing, having "human spaceflight heritage", was guaranteed to do the better job than an inexperienced upstart. Plus the extra $400M they extorted out of NASA despite this being a fixed price, milestone based contract.
- nordsieck 2y ago> when the contracts for this were being awarded, Boeing argued that SpaceX shouldn't get the contract at all because Boeing, having "human spaceflight heritage", was guaranteed to do the better job than an inexperienced upstart. I think it's useful to note that this wasn't just Boeing's opinion - it was pretty widely believed in the industry. And not without reason - Boeing had Shuttle heritage. Thankfully, NASA kept both awards.
- Retric 2y agoIt wan’t an inaccurate assessment. SpaceX was working on life support for a crewed module 14+ years before their first successful manned launch. IE: It took them longer than Boeing. However the missing context is SpaceX put in 8+ years into the project before getting the award which offset most of the issues. So it worked out well for NASA, but SpaceX was approaching it more as a prestige project than a profitable one.
- tw04 2y agoIt took them a decade and a half because Boeing learned the hard way that you have to actually be efficient when you don’t get a cost plus contract. Their entire system was setup to extract as much money from the government as possible, not to deliver product on time. Late and over a budget is how you maximize profit in cost plus contracts.
- elteto 2y agoYes, one year for each unnecessary layer of middle management at Boeing.
- kragen 2y agoit speaks to the lamentable state of boeing