9 ms·
Boeing Starliner could brick ISS docking port if crew abandons it
- totaldude87 2y agoThis is just getting worser and worser. Boeing needs to get its shit in place or stop doing moon shots. Imagine if this happens on mars, #BringbackBoeing
- arthurcolle 2y agotoo big to fail for airlines/ space companies. It is crazy how this has played out and its just like not even considered in the larger picture of their airplanes falling out of the sky.
- bunderbunder 2y agoI'm getting rather disillusioned with that phrase. The one immutable constant of being "too big to fail" is that it guarantees failure.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago"To big to fail" is declared after a failure that should have been company-ending.
- whywhywhywhy 2y agoThis farce felt like it had very generous damage control around it in the press. Hard to view that in a vacuum when you consider the press' dislike of SpaceX because it shares a owner with Twitter and the removal of the Bluecheck privileges.
- JTbane 2y agoIMO they're not to big to fail. The gov't could force a breakup into military vs civilian vs space. Yes, this would be a huge win for Airbus and the like but the buck needs to stop somewhere.
- gonzo41 2y agoImagine if this happens on mars..... You know, like half of star trek is looking for lost crew and ships that have gone astray. People shipping off to mars and beyond are going to have to solve their own problems or just die.
- vardump 2y agoYou'd hopefully have several launch vehicles ready to return to Earth on Mars at different geographical locations.
- ChocolateGod 2y agoBoeing need to stop being given contracts, from the Starliner issues on top of the various scandals with the quality control of their planes, it's clear to see they have no value in human life.
- ActionHank 2y agoBoeing execs should be held criminally accountable for their leadership that has resulted in this mess. People should be in prison.
- teamspirit 2y agoWhy does it feel like we don’t have criminal responsibility (well, accountability) here in the US? So much criminal wrongdoing and the company just pays a fine and everything continues as usual.
- stronglikedan 2y agoIt doesn't feel like that. It is like that. Companies are their own entities, separate from the people that run them, and you can't put a company in jail. This muddies the water as to who can be held accountable and prosecuted.
- snotrockets 2y agoPutting people in jail shouldn’t be an end goal. There are two reasons to jail a person: 1. Prohibit them from causing further harm. 2. Revenge. The latter, I hope were better than that. And to prohibit the possible offenders here, no need to jail them. Just forbid them from serving in capacity that can cause such harm: bar them from serving in executive or decision making role.
- wongarsu 2y agoThose are not the only reasons to put people in jail. There is also 3. Deterring others from similar actions, and 4. Rehabilitation. Number 4 obviously doesn't apply in the US justice system, but number 3, deterrence, is imho the major argument for putting executives or employees in prison. The threat of punishment can be a strong motivator, especially in corporate settings. But it only works if punishments are actually delivered after someone crosses the line
- lenerdenator 2y agoHow's the share price?
- lenerdenator 2y agolol getting downvoted for asking the only question that matters to the people actually making a decision at Boeing.
- hansvm 2y agoHypothetically, if a private citizen bricked the ISS, what would my consequences be?
- BSDobelix 2y agoYou have to fix it, first you have to quit your job, then astronaut training, then you are shipped to Russia, put on a Soyuz flight to the ISS and fix what you have damaged.
- chrisandchris 2y agoWell, if you're flying Soyus at least you have a chance of coming back. Not so if you fly Boeing, as it seems.
- BSDobelix 2y ago>flying Soyus at least you have a chance of coming back Yes and one can take the trash back to earth.
- candiddevmike 2y agoIsn't the ISS going to be decommissioned soon anyways?
- robin_reala 2y ago“Soon” is still 6+ years away.
- Archelaos 2y agoNo. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#End_of_mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#En...
- markus_zhang 2y agoCuriously, is it possible to brick something on ISS remotely? I'm sure there is a lot of communications between ISS and earth.
- Aloha 2y agoI get that there is probably a desire to solely blame Boeing for this - but this seems like as much of a Project Management and integration failure on the NASA side, as it does Boeing putting defective hardware/software into orbit. It shouldn't have been allowed to happen, period. I get that what I said will not be popular, but this has been the consensus of every previous thread on this topic that I've seen - NASA is sorta playing the role of a systems integrator here, and assumes the liability for defective components from their subcontractors, and has the ultimate supervision authority to decide if something can or cannot fly.
- darby_nine 2y ago> I get that there is probably a desire to solely blame Boeing for this I'm sorry, where do you see this impulse? I'm just not following.
- Aloha 2y agoevery previous thread this has come up, essentially.
- EncomLab 2y agoThey have to blame Boeing so no one can blame NASA and by association the National Space Council (whose Chairperson is now running for President).
- darby_nine 2y agoI personally would prefer if NASA handled this internally rather than trotting out an individual to chastise for no benefit to anyone. Accountability on an org? Absolutely. Just don't scapegoat someone when organizational or process incompetence is actually to blame. Meanwhile, boeing is a publicly traded company with what amounts to a monopoly on many, many, many contracts. What was the point of defeating communism if we just give handouts to non-competitive and highly unproductive organizations who can't even hold themselves accountable? And the people who come out of the woodwork to defend them are even more confusing. Don't you want to avoid burning tax money and calling it progress? If they wanted to be seen as a public good they would have voluntarily given up on profits decades ago instead of trying to come off as parasites.
- mrpippy 2y ago[flagged]
- netsharc 2y agoIt amuses me that of course there's a standard for docking interoperability defined: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_System_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_System_S... And adapters: > The International Docking Adapter (IDA) converts older Russian APAS-95 docking systems to the International Docking System Standard Imagine flying all the way and then realizing you forgot your adapter...
- mysterydip 2y agoMaybe they just need to flip it twice like inserting USB devices.
- willhackett 2y agoIt's always the second flip
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoThe first flip collapses the wave function so that it has a definite orientation at all. The second flip then achieves the correct orientation.
- HPsquared 2y agoThe wavefunction collapses on the first attempt to plug in: it's always the wrong way.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoIf that were true then it would work on the second try. In reality it's always the wrong way on the second try.
- yencabulator 2y agoThe second flip is to rotate it around the 4th axis.
- numpad0 2y agoWasn't this clarified in the teleconference that it only needs "mission load" upload, some sort of script change rather than software rebuild? The Ars article quoted seem to predate the conference. Isn't this kind of a stale news?
- eschneider 2y agoHow could they possibly screw up so badly that a SW update would brick the thing? Did they forget the logic to just reboot to last good/factory FW in case of failure? This feels like the story they're telling isn't the real story because that's just basic, basic shit that gets beaten on all the time during development.
- RIMR 2y agoMy theory, given that this claim makes no sense and the article doesn't cite any sources that say anything like this, that this is just bog standard G/O Media blogspam, with bit of misinformation to increase views.
- troyvit 2y agoThey site this Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-likely-to-significantly-delay-the-launch-of-crew-9-due-to-starliner-issues/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-likely-to-signifi... > Three separate, well-placed sources have confirmed to Ars that the current flight software on board Starliner cannot perform an automated undocking from the space station and entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The reasons why the current software can't perform this operation when it could during ground testing are supposition though, and it seems Jolopnik ran with that a little bit.
- troyvit 2y agoI think we're witnessing the enshittification of space.
- RIMR 2y agoI really want to know how a Starliner software update is going to "brick" the ISS Docking Port. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Jalopnik doesn't really seem like an authoritative source on this, especially since the hyperlink they included when they talk about the "Bricking" issue links to some article about simulated decompression sickness that has nothing to do with the ISS docking port...
- devoutsalsa 2y agoMaybe they can just leave it in place, cut a hole in the bottom, and install a new docking port!
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41184359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41184359
- greenavocado 2y agoOn the ground people need to build a jettison rig that they can install inside the Starliner, launch that rig with SpaceX up to the ISS, install the rig, jettison the Starliner, and finally come home with the SpaceX module. Any other way is certain death and the Russians won't help them.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]