4 ms·

Well, they said they would do more modelling. Since they've definitely already done a pile of modelling, the remaining modelling is probably running down a list

Well, they said they would do more modelling. Since they've definitely already done a pile of modelling, the remaining modelling is probably running down a list of alternate assumptions and approaches in whatever modelling system they've been using. Most likely they've already gone ahead modeled out all of their most likely and high confidence assumptions and approaches. Likely the modelling results haven't quite converged, leading them to be unsure. In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). Boeing has declared cold feet over fixed cost contracts (in general, not just with NASA), and I think NASA wants to keep the rest of the contractor pool at least at ease that, okay maybe NASA might start being stingier with the money and contracts, but they aren't going just throw you under the bus when issues appear.

phkahler 2y ago
Modeling is irrelevant when you don't know the cause of the failures or even have an idea. 5 thrusters failed and 4 came back and apparently they don't know why in either case.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > or even have an idea. They have an idea. "Tests of a similar control jet on the ground suggested a Teflon seal in an internal valve could swell at higher temperatures, restricting the flow of propellant to the thruster." That is the idea they have and they are checking if it matches with the measured signals / explains the observations.
- mauvehaus 2y ago
  If they know what is/was wrong, they can model what happens if the problem reoccurs even if they don't know why it occurred, disappeared, or might reoccur. But yeah, about the only thing more irritating than having a problem occur for reasons you don't understand is having it disappear for reasons you also don't understand.
- numpad0 2y ago
  I think they're just being great manager-engineers just as they should be. The root-ish cause so far determined is Teflon seal soaking in rocket fuel and bulging, constricting flow. Downstream it is creating improper oxidizer/fuel ratio and excess heat at thrusters which is triggering alarm and automatic shutdown. These were all explained in plain and accessible English in NASA press conferences and I've watched it online. I'd been a space fan for long enough that I know "improper O/F ratio" usually goes under a picture of a fireball or an artist's impression file image. There were multiple spacecrafts that at least blew off engines that way. The JAXA SLIM mission just this January had it that way. The fact that NASA/Boeing Starliner team keep triggering it and getting away with it is probably technically magnificent. With that prior knowledge, one way I can interpret those corpospeak is "we aren't sure if we can continue to do that and not finally kill the engines, or worse yet, turn everything into a bomb with people inside or around". Many are instead receiving "we technically know such and such [unintelligible] but we aren't sure of anything and we have no idea". That's a great demonstration of public relations skills.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    They're running with the theory of it being the teflon seals, but IIRC the problem is that it doesn't explain why the thrusters appeared to be operating relatively normally in a test at the station. The seal deformation should be permanent, in which case the thrusters shouldn't have recovered on their own, meaning that they might not have caught the real issue. That's what's making the risk difficult to quantify.
TMWNN 2y ago
> In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). The longer NASA pushes out a decision on what to do with Starliner, the more it becomes likely that people within the Biden administration don't want to go with the obvious choice of bringing home the crew on a Crew Dragon, because they don't want the resulting headlines shouting "Elon Musk rescues astronauts from space".
- thefourthchime 2y ago
  I hadn’t thought of a political angle for this, but that does make sense. Announcing “Elon saves NASA” certainly helps the GOP more.
  - WillPostForFood 2y ago
    It clearly helps SpaceX, Musk mostly indirectly, and GOP not at all.
    - booi 2y ago
      Elon is the maga crowd's newest talking head so it helps the GOP at least a little.
      - Covzire 2y ago
        Why does this kind of partisan bickering only ever go one way on HN? Why does every decision have to be a careful calculus when one political party instead of another might get credit? Do people not realize how blatantly biased and partisan they sound?
        allenrb 2y ago
        Maybe because there’s a larger overlap between HN demographics and those of the Democratic Party versus those of the GOP? That’s beside the point, though. NASA is an agency of the United States Government. The idea that politics do not come into play is naive at best.
mr_toad 2y ago
NASA is paying SpaceX something like $200 million per launch. They won’t want to do that unless they have to. And if they did they still need to figure out what to do with Starliner. If they pay SpaceX and then later manage to get Starliner to work then that’s a lot of money down the drain.
- sitkack 2y ago
  Dead astronauts are way more expensive.
- XorNot 2y ago
  The cost isn't the issue here: the problem is you still have to undock and dispose of the capsule without it running back into the station.
- detaro 2y ago
  The current outlined plan does not require an extra SpaceX launch, so that argument doesn't make sense.
- tonyhart7 2y ago
  200 millions usd for NASA is relatively small no ??? still a lot of money yes but for space exploration project ???? probably more than enough people (taxpayer) happy to pay that
7952 2y ago
At this point they are probably not going to succeed in certification. It is a damage limitation exercise. They can... 1. Return uncrewed and burn up. Nasa complemented for its caution. 2. Return uncrewed successfully. Nasa complemented for "excess of caution". 3. Return crewed successfully. Major concern remains over the craft. People continue to question the decision making for years. 4. Craft kills the crew. Either way you are not getting a certified spacecraft out of this. Of course there is a further possibility that the departing craft will cause risk or damage to the iss.
nonethewiser 2y ago
What does this sort of modeling look like? I guess I kind of naively assumed there were people gathering information on the current state, collecting different ways to get the astronauts back with detailed cost/benefit, quantification of risk, etc. and then some executive was collecting this to make a decision. I mean I'm sure that's still happening to some degree but this process of modeling sounds a lot more formal.

phkahler 2y ago

Modeling is irrelevant when you don't know the cause of the failures or even have an idea. 5 thrusters failed and 4 came back and apparently they don't know why in either case.

krisoft 2y ago
> or even have an idea. They have an idea. "Tests of a similar control jet on the ground suggested a Teflon seal in an internal valve could swell at higher temperatures, restricting the flow of propellant to the thruster." That is the idea they have and they are checking if it matches with the measured signals / explains the observations.
mauvehaus 2y ago
If they know what is/was wrong, they can model what happens if the problem reoccurs even if they don't know why it occurred, disappeared, or might reoccur. But yeah, about the only thing more irritating than having a problem occur for reasons you don't understand is having it disappear for reasons you also don't understand.
numpad0 2y ago
I think they're just being great manager-engineers just as they should be. The root-ish cause so far determined is Teflon seal soaking in rocket fuel and bulging, constricting flow. Downstream it is creating improper oxidizer/fuel ratio and excess heat at thrusters which is triggering alarm and automatic shutdown. These were all explained in plain and accessible English in NASA press conferences and I've watched it online. I'd been a space fan for long enough that I know "improper O/F ratio" usually goes under a picture of a fireball or an artist's impression file image. There were multiple spacecrafts that at least blew off engines that way. The JAXA SLIM mission just this January had it that way. The fact that NASA/Boeing Starliner team keep triggering it and getting away with it is probably technically magnificent. With that prior knowledge, one way I can interpret those corpospeak is "we aren't sure if we can continue to do that and not finally kill the engines, or worse yet, turn everything into a bomb with people inside or around". Many are instead receiving "we technically know such and such [unintelligible] but we aren't sure of anything and we have no idea". That's a great demonstration of public relations skills.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  They're running with the theory of it being the teflon seals, but IIRC the problem is that it doesn't explain why the thrusters appeared to be operating relatively normally in a test at the station. The seal deformation should be permanent, in which case the thrusters shouldn't have recovered on their own, meaning that they might not have caught the real issue. That's what's making the risk difficult to quantify.

TMWNN 2y ago

> In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). The longer NASA pushes out a decision on what to do with Starliner, the more it becomes likely that people within the Biden administration don't want to go with the obvious choice of bringing home the crew on a Crew Dragon, because they don't want the resulting headlines shouting "Elon Musk rescues astronauts from space".

thefourthchime 2y ago
I hadn’t thought of a political angle for this, but that does make sense. Announcing “Elon saves NASA” certainly helps the GOP more.
- WillPostForFood 2y ago
  It clearly helps SpaceX, Musk mostly indirectly, and GOP not at all.
  - booi 2y ago
    Elon is the maga crowd's newest talking head so it helps the GOP at least a little.
    - Covzire 2y ago
      Why does this kind of partisan bickering only ever go one way on HN? Why does every decision have to be a careful calculus when one political party instead of another might get credit? Do people not realize how blatantly biased and partisan they sound?
      - allenrb 2y ago
        Maybe because there’s a larger overlap between HN demographics and those of the Democratic Party versus those of the GOP? That’s beside the point, though. NASA is an agency of the United States Government. The idea that politics do not come into play is naive at best.

mr_toad 2y ago

NASA is paying SpaceX something like $200 million per launch. They won’t want to do that unless they have to. And if they did they still need to figure out what to do with Starliner. If they pay SpaceX and then later manage to get Starliner to work then that’s a lot of money down the drain.

sitkack 2y ago
Dead astronauts are way more expensive.
XorNot 2y ago
The cost isn't the issue here: the problem is you still have to undock and dispose of the capsule without it running back into the station.
detaro 2y ago
The current outlined plan does not require an extra SpaceX launch, so that argument doesn't make sense.
tonyhart7 2y ago
200 millions usd for NASA is relatively small no ??? still a lot of money yes but for space exploration project ???? probably more than enough people (taxpayer) happy to pay that

7952 2y ago

At this point they are probably not going to succeed in certification. It is a damage limitation exercise. They can... 1. Return uncrewed and burn up. Nasa complemented for its caution. 2. Return uncrewed successfully. Nasa complemented for "excess of caution". 3. Return crewed successfully. Major concern remains over the craft. People continue to question the decision making for years. 4. Craft kills the crew. Either way you are not getting a certified spacecraft out of this. Of course there is a further possibility that the departing craft will cause risk or damage to the iss.

nonethewiser 2y ago

What does this sort of modeling look like? I guess I kind of naively assumed there were people gathering information on the current state, collecting different ways to get the astronauts back with detailed cost/benefit, quantification of risk, etc. and then some executive was collecting this to make a decision. I mean I'm sure that's still happening to some degree but this process of modeling sounds a lot more formal.