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NASA announces Boeing Starliner crew will return on SpaceX Crew-9
- ripjaygn 2y agoStarliner will try to return uncrewed back to earth.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y agoKnowing Boeing, possibly unscrewed too, haha.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoThat's going to be a lot of miles on a self-driving vehicle. But if there are no further incidents it may not end up with such a bad Carfax after all ;)
- nullhole 2y agoArticle on nasa.gov: "NASA Decides to Bring Starliner Spacecraft Back to Earth Without Crew" https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-starliner-spacecraft-back-to-earth-without-crew/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-star... @dang this seems like a better link, could it replace the current one?
- GeekyBear 2y agoIsn't the question of how the astronauts will get back the real story here?
- diggan 2y agoThe option was between Starliner or Crew-9, so not using Starliner means they'll use Crew-9.
- belter 2y agoAnd also, do they have a way to evacuate right now in case of emergency?
- ripjaygn 2y agoThey will reconfigure Crew 8 for six occupants for emergency evacuation.
- belter 2y agoSo they don't have an evacuation option right now? I assumed the problem was the spacesuits are not compatible with SpaceX requirements? https://www.adastraspace.com/p/boeing-spacex-spacesuits-compatible https://www.adastraspace.com/p/boeing-spacex-spacesuits-comp...
- echoangle 2y agoThe evacuation option right now is Starliner
- dylan604 2y agoI'm guessing if the ISS was no longer able to sustain life support, Starliner would be used. Guaranteed loss of life by staying on ISS or having an unknown <100% chance of surviving using Starliner, of course it will be chanced. I'm not really sure what point your question is attempting to get at
- belter 2y agoThey don't have a way to come back to Earth right now on a Spaceship cleared for human flight.
- NavinF 2y agoI'm sure the astronauts would much prefer to have a Dragon available, but I don't think NASA's "cleared for human flight" means much. After all, 4% (14/355) of all the astronauts that flew on the space shuttle died when their vehicles exploded.
- gitfan86 2y agoThe highest quality and most up to date source is EricBerger on X https://x.com/SciGuySpace https://x.com/SciGuySpace
- _Microft 2y agoHe’s also covering space topics for Ars Technica and you can certainly expect an article on this in the next few days. This one is from yesterday, maybe it will receive an update? https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/as-nasa-nears-major-decision-on-starliner-heres-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/as-nasa-nears-major-de...
- somenameforme 2y agoHere's the link to all of his articles: https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ I don't have a positive opinion of Ars, but he's absolutely one of the best sources for space news and reporting.
- dylan604 2y agoMore up to date than the actual press conference currently ongoing linked else where in the thread?
- gitfan86 2y agoYes, because NASA and Boeing have been both putting their own spin on the things they say. If you read his threads on X you can get a good idea of what I'm talking about
- NavinF 2y agoNo, that NASA article is mostly fluff. The original link to the ongoing press conference and Eric Berger's summary of it (https://x.com/SciGuySpace https://x.com/SciGuySpace) are better.
- roughly 2y agoIf we're going to keep Boeing around because it's in the national security interest to have an American airplane manufacturer, we need to either nationalize it, break it up, or remove the entire leadership class. The company exists at this point for the same reason that Chase bank does: because they cannot fail, because we will not let them. The market structure will not work for this company, at least not the way corporate management is done in 2024, and if I'm the Air Force or any other branch of the US military reliant on Boeing goods, I'm not feeling particularly optimistic about my supply of Boeing parts, planes, and armaments right now.
- nsxwolf 2y agoWe need keep Boeing around so that SpaceX doesn’t turn into Boeing.
- tim333 2y agoThere's other competition out there.
- alphabettsy 2y agoWhat’s the issue with Chase Bank and leadership that’s similar to Boeing?
- roughly 2y agoNothing I'm aware of with Chase's leadership, but they're the largest bank in the US by far by AUM, and that's because they've been the partner of choice for the FDIC & regulators looking to rescue distressed banks. In other words, they're a private corporation being used to fill a role the government deems essential, and consequently probably the safest place on earth to put your money right now, at least with regards to the risk of a bank failure. (As I noted elsewhere, they're treated much differently than Boeing, in that they're audited, stress-tested, and generally put under the kind of scrutiny warranted by that kind of role.)
- misiti3780 2y ago100% agree.
- acomjean 2y agoI dont blame NASA, who knows what else is wrong with that capsule. I feel bad for Boeing. Though to be honest when I worked on a project where we were a Boeing sub (defense)we didn’t really care for them.. Competition is good, and it’s sad they can’t get their act together. Hopefully someone else will, though it will take years. The problem with Boeing is they seem to treat all their projects like the non competitive defense space..
- diggan 2y ago> I feel bad for Boeing. I don't quite understand this. Boeing is a for-profit company that chose to try to optimize profits over anything else, and now that's biting them in the butt. What's to feel bad about? That the executives made the wrong decision?
- mym1990 2y agoThere are still some, even many, people there that are doing their jobs as well as they can at the expense of bad executive decisions. I’m sure morale there is not great. I don’t feel bad for the executives at all, or the company really, but there are likely some great people that are just getting kicked around based on the crisis of the week.
- diggan 2y agoBut it's exactly the same at Facebook/Google/Amazon/Palantir and countless of other places, yet people chose to work at those places. Why feel bad for them? They've made their choices, and if they're not happy with those anymore, they can make new choices.
- Mistletoe 2y ago>“between 2013 and 2019, Boeing spent 43 billion dollars on stock buybacks (a hundred and four per cent of its profits) rather than spending resources to address design flaws in some of its popular jet models,”
- 2y ago
- rx_tx 2y agoA few tidbits/notes I took: - They'll reconfigure Crew-8 for 6 occupants for contingency evac between Starliner undock and Crew-9 arrival. - Starliner leaving ISS autonomously early September - Crew 9 launching no later than Sept 24th with 2 crew + 2 empty seats - Crew 9 coming back down in ~Feb 2025
- dev_tty01 2y ago>- Crew 9 launching no later than Sept 24th with 2 crew + 2 empty seats Actually, they said no sooner than Sept 24th.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoWhy have Crew 9 up there until February?
- rx_tx 2y agoMaybe NASA still wants to get something for the money spent launching Crew 9 and get some science done, not just be a rescue mission. They don't want to cut that mission short.
- dylan604 2y agoSure, if Starliner returns in auto mode successfully, then Boeing will be able to save face, and NASA will be able to take some stock in that. However, if there is a viable alternate option that has a much better track record of working, NASA would potentially not survive as an agency if there was a catastrophic ending to a Starliner return with the astronauts on board. So from a keep humans safe while still attempting to complete the Starliner mission as much as possible, to me this is the best solution. In fact, it's kind of bonus for Boeing to test the automated return that was not part of the original mission. </spinDocter>
- dotnet00 2y agoThat's the standard crew rotation cycle, and their capsules stay as emergency escape vehicles during their stay.
- rst 2y agoNASA press conference ongoing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOswKRSsHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOswKRSsHc (Bottom line: they couldn't tell what was up with the thrusters, and didn't want to bet anyone's life on it not getting worse.)
- meroes 2y agoDidn’t they say Teflon was coming off/bubbling and disrupting the flow of the thrusters?
- diggan 2y agoI understood what they were saying about the simulations as that the teflon seemed to have expanded slightly and disrupting the oxidizers input, meaning the thrusters wouldn't work as they should.
- dotnet00 2y agoYes, permanent teflon deformation. Problem is, if the deformation observed in ground tests was permanent, why did the ones in space eventually seem to recover? That's what's making it harder to trust the thrusters I think.
- kotaKat 2y agoAt least this saves Dave Calhoun becoming a vital participant in the 2024 Senate hearings on missing astronauts.
- sidcool 2y agoFebruary 2025!! Whoa.
- AnonMO 2y agoBoeing will probably sue the manufacturer of the failed RCS thrusters in the next year.
- extropy 2y agoPossible. Depends how the contract is structured, they may be able to claw back some money from Aerojet. Boeing still takes all the blame.
- bottlepalm 2y agoEmbarrassing, NASA has been downplaying the seriousness of this for months. Boeing is cooked. SLS should be scrapped. There has got to be consequences for over spending, under delivering, and outright failing.
- null0ranje 2y agoIt's a fixed-price contract, so Boeing is out $1.5 billion on this.
- somenameforme 2y agoStarliner is the capsule, SLS is the rocket. SLS [1] is not a fixed price contract. The government's dumped tens of billions on it already, and continues to throw good money after bad. And the "fixed" price contract for Starliner keeps getting adjusted with NASA giving them hundreds of millions more dollars, allowing them to skip certain qualifying tests, and so on. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
- TMWNN 2y ago>Embarrassing, NASA has been downplaying the seriousness of this for months. As late as July 28, flight director Ed Van Cise explicitly denied that the Starliner crew was stuck or stranded <https://x.com/Carbon_Flight/status/1817754775196201035 https://x.com/Carbon_Flight/status/1817754775196201035>. Even if one quibbles about whether "stranded" applies in this situation (I believe that it does <https://np.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ekicol/not_stranded_in_space_how_nasa_lost_control_of/lgm9fcb/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ekicol/not_stranded_...>), "stuck" definitely does.
- malfist 2y agoYou keep posting this reply everywhere, doesn't make it true. They've always had the option of coming down on crew 8, they will have the plan of coming down on crew 9. The starliner is still functional as well, just the risk is unquantified. Remember NASA requires a risk assessment of 1:270 odds to proceed. Saying they're not coming back on starliner doesn't mean that it's certain death if they do
- xyst 2y agoWhat a massive embarrassment for NASA and Boeing. Boeing name used to mean something, now it’s joined the rest of the junk in this modern world.
- soupfordummies 2y agoIt’s hard not to be cynical these days when almost everything seems to be “maximize every possible drop of profit at the expense of almost anything else.” It seems so short-sighted and instant-gratification-y.
- dylan604 2y agoI'm waiting for Boeing to change its name to get away from all of the negativity associated with Boeing. It's the classic move for a company that doesn't really want to change business practices, but need to "start over"
- bloopernova 2y agoBlackwater | Xe Services | Academi | Constellis Holdings I wonder if Boeing will try that? They still seem to be in the "deny deny deny, hope people forget" method of operation.
- ivan_gammel 2y agoNo, it is not an embarrassment. Space is hard, failures do happen often there. There is and will always be a human factor, politics and cost optimizations. Despite that they delivered people to ISS and have a plan B. It is partial success. The problems will eventually be fixed and USA will solidify its leadership in space race by having different launch systems and never again being dependent on rival powers.
- Gareth321 2y agoI think this is much less embarrassing for NASA than Boeing. NASA outsources their engineering now, and Boeing was, until very recently, a prestigious aeronautical engineering company. It's going to be very difficult for the world to adjust to the new reality that Boeing is no more. It's an even stranger reality that the company which routinely blows up rockets in pursuit of what everyone believed was impossible just a few years ago is now the clear and obvious choice. I think that's the even bigger story here for me: what Musk has done with SpaceX is nothing short of revolutionary. In hundreds of years people are going to be watching this as a pivotal moment in human development: https://youtu.be/sf4qRY3h_eo?si=fAhcunCLHY803wn7&t=454 https://youtu.be/sf4qRY3h_eo?si=fAhcunCLHY803wn7&t=454 Look at this shit. Just look at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AXnMlxK22A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AXnMlxK22A
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- stan_kirdey 2y agodoes the crew get paid overtime if they were to stay until Feb?
- rufus_foreman 2y agoAccording to a report I read, their extra time is being compensated by Boeing with $50 gift cards for Red Lobster.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoThis is evidence of the utter failure of constantly pumping money into a dated cartel of prime contractors that have no incentive to do better. I am very thankful we have Elon Musk to be bold enough to enter this impossibly capital heavy market and show a better way. I hope this is the start of a reset on how taxes are funneled to government contractors.
- paxys 2y agoIt's crazy to me that while we've been fantasizing about lunar bases, Mars settlements, asteroid mining and colony ships, now, 60+ years after our "space" era started, we still haven't figured out how to get a single person to low Earth orbit and back in a safe and cost efficient way. We all need a collective reality check on our spacefaring hopes.
- Arch-TK 2y ago[flagged]
- option 2y agolook at track record. Not at tweets. He has delivered more than anyone else. By far and in several areas.
- WalterBright 2y agoI follow Musk on twitter. I usually get a chuckle from his tweets. It's nice to see a major figure speak his mind rather than the careful pablum filtered through a PR department and read off a teleprompter.
- hackernewds 2y agoMusk is the epitome of "never meet your idols"
- dbg31415 2y ago[flagged]
- WalterBright 2y agoI hear "racist" bandied about so often it has lost its meaning. > how does Musk still not have the judgement to just keep his mouth shut when he doesn’t have something nice to say? I'm old, and no longer care what people say. It's what they do that matters.
- mbStavola 2y agoWe need to nationalize Boeing and get rid of the money men who ran this company into the ground.
- WalterBright 2y agoNationalized industries have no good record of quality or efficiency. See Chernobyl.
- TMWNN 2y agoThe comment section for the Washington Post article <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/24/starliner-boeing-spacex-nasa/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/24/starlin...> reporting on today's news is overflowing with anger/despair/grief/denial from anti-Musk, anti-SpaceX people. One example: >For those who "More Engineers and Less MBAs", that's a dog whistle - Just so you know, Boeing is the most diversified aerospace and aircraft manufacturer in the U.S. Typically, Engineers are more arrogant and misogynistic, while MBAs tend to be more progressive, though they can also be more driven by profit. Want an example? SpaceX is a so called "Engineers driven" company. >At this point, Starliner is actually safe enough (less 1/270 of failure chance) to bring those 2 astronauts back home. The only reason why NASA is not using Starliner, is because there is an election 3 months away. NASA administrator (a politician) made the final decision, so it's not up to MBA or Engineer, it's up to a politician. >Vote Blue, Nationalize SpaceX and Pass it to Boeing to Run, everybody wins except Musk.
- WalterBright 2y ago> "Engineers are more arrogant and misogynistic, while MBAs tend to be more progressive" Utter bilge. I bet the author knows nothing about engineers or running a business.
- FabHK 2y agoPrivate industries have no good record of quality or efficiency. See Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Fukushima, Enron, Theranos, etc. With the cheap talking points out of the way, one could examine this question carefully and objectively now.
- andromaton 2y agoNasa website still obfuscating. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-starliner-spacecraft-back-to-earth-without-crew/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-star... Practically nobody was asking "how are they bringing back starliner?" Practically everyone was asking "how are the astronauts returning?"
- diggan 2y agoNASA is focused on the mission, which is the Starliner test flight. Macabre, maybe, but someone has to focus on what they set out to do. Obviously, they're not gonna just count out the humans involved, but it make sense they want to focus on the core mission. At least that's how I understood it from listening to the press conference for the last half hour or so.`
- wiremine 2y agoI read "A City on Mars" last year, and it opened my eyes to just hard space travel is. The government constraints on aerospace projects doesn't help. There's a reason SpaceX moves so much faster; they don't have to justify and explain things to taxpayers. Beyond that, the book makes a good case for how unrealistic a long-term colony on Mars is... at least in the short term (Short being the next 50 to 100 years). My biggest take away is: for all his talk, Musk basically just wants to be the Uber to Mars: shuttling people there and back. He don't seem serious about _actually_ solving the problems of how to stay alive and thrive once we get there. I found it sort of depressing as first, as I'd love to see people loving on Mars in my lifetime. But when I thought about it, I saw that they outlined a bunch of really important problems we should be working on as a society. The sooner we work on those problems, the better. [1] https://www.acityonmars.com/ https://www.acityonmars.com/
- icegreentea2 2y agoBoeing developed Starliner under the exact same set of constraints that SpaceX had for crewed dragon.
- wiremine 2y ago> Boeing developed Starliner under the exact same set of constraints that SpaceX had for crewed dragon. You could be right. My (limited) understanding is that SpaceX is doing most of their R&D internally, and therefore they don't have the same oversight requirements more NASA-centric projects require. But that was based on an article about Artemis, and not Starliner.
- dotnet00 2y agoNASA officials have previously admitted to applying more oversight to SpaceX than they did to Boeing regarding commercial crew. SpaceX's success is in being self-motivated. The government money is nice, but they want to develop and commercialize the tech anyway and are willing to put their own money into it. As evidence we have all the private Dragon flights, extra capsules built for free-flying missions and their self-developed EVA capability that should launch some time in the coming week. That significantly relaxes the controls compared to Boeing, which is structured around exploiting cost-plus contracting, so every bit of work needs to be tracked and billed, the more time it takes, the better. Starliner was fixed price and they had to put in their own money so they would've been doing the bare minimum to keep the program going. They've only built the bare minimum 2 vehicles they'd need to meet contract requirements, and can only launch on the few launches reserved on a now retired rocket, so no room to commercialize until someone pays them to make it work with Vulcan.
- sitkack 2y agoExcellent news! Thank you NASA for making the right human and engineering decision. This was news to me tho, "and Dragon-specific spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams." The spacesuits are specific to the vehicle? Changing my underwear so I can drive to hardware store.
- marssaxman 2y agoDon't spacesuits typically have some umbilical connection to the capsule life support systems? It's easy to imagine that these connectors might not be standardized between different capsules, and that sending up a new space suit might be easier than designing an adapter.
- sitkack 2y ago927! We are literally building the future, HTF do we keep getting into these situations?
- yhvh 2y agoEfficiency
- marssaxman 2y agoWhat does "927" mean?
- fouronnes3 2y ago927 is a noun at this point to me. Hell so many xkcd could be: 1319, 936, 2347. It's crazy how often referencing a xkcd is the highest signal to noise way of communicating a concept.
- marssaxman 2y agoI guess that's a real S5:E2 experience.
- Natsu 2y agoI'm just glad they're prioritizing crew safety here. I don't have a lot of trust in Boeing right now.
- lokar 2y agoYou have to assume Boeings reputation is an issue here. It changes the expected value for the decision maker(s) since the cost of going with Boeing (allowing a crewed return) is so much higher for them personally in the failure case.
- mattmaroon 2y agoThis was the only way this could ever play out. After all of Boeing’s last five years, even if 100% unrelated, no bureaucrat anywhere would take that risk. If something goes wrong, you’re the idiot who put the astronauts on a vehicle from a company who has had a long string of recent failures. Even at the best of times space travel is risky, why tie your career to that?
- mjamesaustin 2y agoNot only would you be the bureaucrat who put astronauts on a vehicle with documented problems, you would have done so when a perfectly capable alternative was sitting there able to help.
- mattmaroon 2y agoGood point, even worse.
- WalterBright 2y agoElon Musk is a lot like Kelly Johnson (Lockheed Skunkworks). No company was ever able to replicate the Skunkworks, though many have tried. I've read biographies of both - well worth reading for anyone who wants to read about great Americans.
- vessenes 2y agoI loved Kelly's memoir; reading his story and how he did what he did makes it seem so simple in the telling; looking at the many billions wasted by companies trying to get close tells you -- not so fast. I learned in that book that he actually returned money to the government for, I think, the U-2 project -- they made a few extra planes and had money left over. Amazing. I'd love to read a longitudinal retrospective of failed skunkworks setups and see why participants thought they failed -- I bet it's a diverse list of reasons.
- WalterBright 2y agoOf the ones I learned about, it was because they were going to replicate Skunkworks "only better". The latter broke it every time.
- vessenes 2y agoKelly had a subversive quality to him that is probably almost impossible to institutionalize; I think it's unusual to find that mixed with some nationalist pride -- in that way, I see him as a product of the war, and the postwar boom. That plus his broad multilateral intelligence -- seeing design and implementation as one thing that one could expect to understand and possibly master -- stood out for me, reading about him. Anyway, if a leader like Kelly is needed for a skunkworks, that itself may be quite difficult. I'd guess most large companies would take a functioning "almost as good as" Skunkworks any day, if they could tolerate the guy/gal running it.
- WalterBright 2y agoKelly was famous for telling the CEO of Lockheed to butt out whenever the CEO called him to ask him what he was doing. He was tolerated because he got results. With the size of his budget, it would be a very, very rare CEO who would tolerate that.
- theginger 2y agoWhat happens if you need to file a tax return but you can't because your flight back from space got cancelled and you were delayed for 6 months?
- dvh 2y ago[flagged]
- cko 2y agoNot true. Fees and interest if you owe and probably nothing if you overpaid.
- _zoltan_ 2y ago[flagged]
- azemetre 2y agoMeme replies should be downvoted, there are other places online where joke comments are a regular occurrence. I like how HN at least tries to force a real discussion and attempts at humor need to be both sincere and not low effort.
- _zoltan_ 2y agoI laughed out loud, so I disagree.
- refulgentis 2y ago[flagged]
- _zoltan_ 2y ago[flagged]
- credit_guy 2y agoI wonder if the astronauts get some type of extra-pay for the time when they are in space. It feels they they should. If that's the case, these 2 astronauts got quite lucky. They were supposed to stay only a few days in orbit, and they end up staying a few months.
- starik36 2y agoThey should at least cancel their Netflix subscription.
- flag32 2y agoGood call.
- 00_hum 2y ago[flagged]
- LegitShady 2y ago>“Starliner is a very capable spacecraft and, ultimately, this comes down to needing a higher level of certainty to perform a crewed return,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “The NASA and Boeing teams have completed a tremendous amount of testing and analysis, and this flight test is providing critical information on Starliner’s performance in space. Our efforts will help prepare for the uncrewed return and will greatly benefit future corrective actions for the spacecraft.” "we think its gonna blow up"
- jonplackett 2y agoSo when is the uncrewed flight back? I wanna watch.
- BHSPitMonkey 2y ago"Early September". I'm not sure if any of the live streams of entry/recovery will be cancelled now that Butch and Suni won't be on board.
- genter 2y ago"NASA Decides", not "Shitty Boeing Engineering Results In". Come on NASA, place the blame where it's due.
- nomel 2y agoThe government war machine doesn't hurt itself, even when its tentacles are spread a bit apart.
- bigyikes 2y agoSince there are no people on board…… I hope it blows up
- _zoltan_ 2y agoOne more nail in Boeing's coffin.
- shagie 2y agoWhile Boeing - the union of Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas - needs some fundamental changes, Boeing the company represents a significant trained workforce for aerospace construction. Saying "welp... guess we'll close up shop and ship those jobs somewhere else. Time to learn French and go work for Airbus (The ArianeGroup is Airbus and Safran)." Wishing for the demise of Boeing represents an irrecoverable loss of industrial capacity for the US.
- makerdiety 2y agoA true scientist would come to the conclusion that at this point in time it's time to give up on the great liberal democracy project. A true scientist has the scale needed to recognize that capitalism, as practiced under liberal aims, does not have the desire nor the ability to satisfy modern industrialism's education prerequisite. A societal culture that has prioritized the reverse of education is what has led to the United States's incompetence at technology and industry. The United States was never going to succeed in this arena. The kid gets a failing grade. Pick someone else that is a better candidate at mission success. Select someone that's serious about doing real work. Maybe capitalism's competitor, whatever that may be, is better at heralding space travel and mass production?
- doublepg23 2y agoDoesn't this ignore SpaceX being American?
- 2y ago
- hintymad 2y agoI wonder if there are books or articles that analyze how and why Boeing declined so fast and so spectacularly. Boeing used to be able to build 747 under budget and ahead of schedule, just like Lockheed could dazzle the world by creating U2 ahead of schedule and under budget with fewer than 200 people (or < 100?) in 15 months with the cost of a few millions. It can't be just the change of geopolitics post Cold War, right? It can't be just that the fixed-margin structure imposed by the government, right? It can't be just the mismanagement or the greed of the leadership, right? It can't just be that Boeing is in the phase of accelerated decline as any old-enough company, right? I'm curious about such questions because on a larger scheme of the things, I really hope that Boeing is not a miniature reflection of the US - an empire in its twilight that got entangled in irreconcilable interests, doomed to watch its own inevitable decline.
- lysace 2y ago> I wonder if there are books or articles that analyze how and why Boeing declined so fast and so spectacularly. I'm sure there's a number of books on the topic in the publishing pipeline. > It can't be just the mismanagement or the greed of the leadership, right? It can.
- dylan604 2y agoWasn't the U2 a skunkworks project where they just did it vs opening it up for input from committee whether from corporate or bureaucratic? Starliner was far far from that. From day one, everyone's fingers were in the pie.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- CoastalCoder 2y agoTangent, but I've seen a U2 at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. It's amazing how small that thing is, given its capabilities.
- hedgehog 2y agoU2 was Skunkworks, they started with an existing airframe (F-104?) and worked from there. Significant compromises, for example the wings droop so much they skid on the ground on landing and it's use was limited by the improved anti-aircraft missiles that became available around the same time.
- lopkeny12ko 2y ago[flagged]
- fredgrott 2y agokey point: NASA and BOEING disagreed on whether it was safe for Starliner to depart to Earth with astronauts..... I think it might be time to short Boeing stock....
- fullshark 2y agoI think it might be time for the gov't to nationalize the company
- gduplessy 2y agoYes, let's make them even less efficient.
- mkoubaa 2y agoThat's a 20th century solution. The right thing to do now is to shutter the company and make all it's patents and designs public domain
- onepointsixC 2y agoI’m sure the Russians and Chinese would love that.
- cft 2y agoSame as shorting the dollar: it will fall, but you don't know when
- spoonfeeder006 2y agoAt first I misread that as the astronauts would come back aboard the starliner And I was like...now I'm scared for them
- Arn_Thor 2y agoThe only sensible choice. Glad to see NASA make the right call. Putting the lives of the crew over expedience is the correct priority.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jmyeet 2y agoMany of you might assume that Starliner is a cost-plus contract. Cost-plus contracts are common for large capital projects but they often end up running way over budget because the provider is essentially incentivized for budget overruns because they get paid more. It turns out Starliner is a fixed-price contract (for $4.2 billion). So when Starliner had an issue a couple of years ago Boeing was forced to do another test and eat the launch cost. We ened more of this. SLS (and Artemis?), for example, is largely done by cost-plus contracts. It's common for companies and governments to want to have more than one supplier so they can't so easily be price-gouged (which doesn't really work but that's a separate topic). SpaceX got a $2.6 billion contract for Crew Dragon and its launch cost has to be substantially lower than Starliner's. So NASA will still push Starliner for this reason. But this whole debacle is deeply embarrasing for Boeing, so much so that people at the top may actually get fired. That's really rare for the executives responsible for a strategy to be held accountable for its failures. Boeing is just not in a great place and I honestly don't know how you right the ship at this point. A fish rots from the head and I imagine Boeing has descended into warring fiefdoms where some VPs just try and increase their head counts so they can get promoted to SVP.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Laremere 2y agoI doubt NASA wants to put 4 astronauts on the next Starliner flight. So if NASA declares this crewed flight test a failure and requires a redo (and possibly even reverting back to a third out of one planned uncrewed flight test), Boeing is still on the hook for their operational 6 crewed flights. Here's the problem: Starliner flies in the Atlas 5 rocket. Which is officially deprecated and all of the vehicles that will ever built have been booked. Which would mean that Boeing has to nicely ask Project Kepler for one (or more) or their remaining Atlas 5 slots. All of this also pushes back the final flight of the Atlas 5. Starliner already has 5 years where it's the only mission in that rocket, requiring hardware and operational knowledge to be on retainer just for Starliner. At least the pad that launches Starliner can also do Vulcan launches, so they won't be hogging a launch pad just for this problematic program.
- tzfld 2y agoIf they manage to human rate Vulcan, I don't think it would be technically hard to launch Starliner on it. Just looking at Cygnus which used three different rockets from three different companies.
- lysace 2y ago[flagged]
- IAmNotACellist 2y agoWent from "NOO that's just an irresponsible conspiracy theory!" to trickling that truth out, and then barely mentioning it.
- Volundr 2y agoEh? I haven't been following this closely, yet I've seen multiple headlines the last few days about SpaceX rescuing stranded astronauts, at at least one on the front page about the spacesuits being incompatible. Who exactly is avoiding mentioning it?
- lysace 2y ago[flagged]
- Volundr 2y agoI'm honestly unclear on what you are getting at here. I can find multiple mentions of SpaceX and Musk in comments older than yours. Are you objecting to the fact that no one has called out that he's originally from South Africa? Why would they?
- lysace 2y agoYou're correct in that there are some references to SpaceX but as far as I can tell no-one talked about the fact they were chosen to bring the crew back home.
- dredmorbius 2y agoRe: top-level comment (which cannot be directly replied to): <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9989612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9989612>
- IAmNotACellist 2y ago"They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let them crash."
- laweijfmvo 2y agoSo, what happens if it does blow up, or otherwise has a catastrophic failure on re-entry? Will we be able to say for certain if it was due to Starliner’s faults, or just the fact that there wasn’t a human pilot? All Boeing hate aside this is a learning experience for everyone involved.
- caconym_ 2y agoIt will certainly be (rightly) blamed on the vehicle. It's designed to operate completely autonomously---they flew two full test flights that way before ever putting crew on it.
- sneak 2y agoI’m pretty sure it will be blamed not on the vehicle, but on the company that manufactured it.
- caconym_ 2y agoWhat do you imagine is the material difference between what I said and what you said? But if you want to split hairs like this, get it right: companies. Boeing is the primary contractor, but others likely share some responsibility---for instance AJR, who supplied the problematic thrusters.
- flohofwoe 2y agoI would be very surprised if any human actions are required for delivering people into and returning them from space, or even any controls being present in the capsule to allow the human payload making any changes to flight parameters ;)
- teractiveodular 2y agoYes? There's ridiculous amounts of telemetry in these things.
- sneak 2y agoFor how long have they been claiming that these crew members aren’t stranded up there?
- shirro 2y agoBoeing was awarded more money for their vehicle, had years of extra time and two previous demonstration flights. This flight should have been close to flawless given the additional time Boeing had for remediation and testing. Boeing engineers should have understood their systems well enough to convincingly demonstrate the vehicle met NASA's safety requirements. Even after much additional testing during the flight they couldn't make their case. Starliner will probably complete its third uncrewed return intact and people might question if NASA was being overly cautious but perhaps Boeing should have supplied a crewed vehicle with reliable thrusters and avoided this embarrassment.
- black_13 2y agoBoeing problems are because everyone wants their 401k to return as much as possible Boeing got to where it is because of Wall Street
- sidcool 2y ago[flagged]
- yinser 2y agoHow do you identify posts written by grok and what is the chance you’re completely wrong?
- sidcool 2y agoThe writing style. Looks like Grok normal mode. There's a big chance I am wrong. Hence the phrasing of my comment.
- rustcleaner 2y agoOh hell this place is being botted too?
- Loughla 2y agoEverywhere. I would bet this place is a particular target for bots just because of the connections people have on here to real life money.
- dev1ycan 2y agoIt actually disgusts me reading the boeing subreddit and how there's comments coming from obvious traders or management being upvoted straight up lying through their teeth about this. I'll quote one: "It’s ridiculous. Only a few of the 27 thrusters had issues. The capsule is designed to operate with only half the thrusters." (4 upvotes) Obviously the reply to it straight up calls him out and exposes it, but it just shows that people around Boeing have no respect whatsoever for human safety, it's all dollar bills to them... I do not think I'd trust my life to boeing anytime soon, I do not want to be guessing mid flight if the boeing I'm on was built in the last 20 years or not (newer = less safe)
- kiddico 2y agoThere was an... interesting reddit thread 3 hours before the announcement leaking the decision. I'll just let you enjoy the thread yourself: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1f062o0/boeing_is_crashing_in_3_hours/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1f062o0/boe... OR https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1f062o0/boeing_is_crashing_in_3_hours/ https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1f062o0/boe...
- someperson 2y agoSpace journalist Eric Berger of Ars Technica has been speaking to his contacts and writing articles about the very likely SpaceX Crew 9 plan for the last week.
- kelnos 2y agoA little difficult for Boeing's stock price to tank on a Saturday, though... But I bet the market will have some things to say on Monday, unless Boeing can do some damage control before then.
- whimsicalism 2y agopresumably there are private liquidity pools
- theGnuMe 2y agoThis was the only possible outcome politically. It’s also likely the best one safety wise as well.
- gigatexal 2y agoBoeing’s space program is effectively DOA with this. How do they recover from this? Seems like a huge win for spacex.
- worik 2y agoHitchhikers!
- poopsmithe 2y agoThe most bonkers thing to me is how Starliner was allowed to fly with crew on board when it was on the pad leaking helium. This leaking was known and ongoing for hours and they let it fly anyway.
- ethical 2y agoThe problem? Agile and Software. Too many monkeys trying to write a Shakespeare non masterpiece.
- ethical 2y agoThe problem? Agile and software. Too many monkeys trying to write a Shakespeare non masterpiece.
- rldjbpin 2y agothe cost of abstraction and complexity is shining through. hope the next mission goes as planned.
- egorfine 2y agoIt seems that for Boeing management, engineering is an annoying nuisance that gets in the way of making money.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 2y agoCrazy to think they would have had to be saved by Russia were it not for SpaceX.
- elif 2y agoI suspect this is a component of why the presumptive president is pushing the unrealized gains tax. If Elon were forced to produce tens of billions liquid he would have to sell shares of his companies, and perhaps IPO spaceX, allowing the government to more tightly control it.
- pharos92 2y agoMcDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeings money. Engineering culture died and became bean-counter, lowest common denominator corporate-culture. Lobbying went up, outsourcing to third world went up, quality went down, whistleblowers fired and suppressed. These organizations no longer exist for the purpose of building great products and pushing the limits of engineering. It's easier to operate on the tit of the state and rake in billions through sleazy backroom deals and lobbying with the state acting as an artificial intermediary between cause and effect.
- jcalvinowens 2y agoAre there any more detailed technical reports about the current starliner problems out there yet? All I can find are a few paragraphs in press releases. Maybe we just have to wait.
- smsm42 2y agoCan somebody convince Musk to start making planes now? Flying on Boeings is kinda getting scary now, and Airbus standing alone is not healthy.
- underseacables 2y agoCommon sense has finally prevailed. IMO Boeing fought this tooth and nail because of Musk, risking the lives of the astronauts to save corporate face. Heads should roll but Boeing is too big to fail, to big to jail, and the executives will make out with a golden parachute in the end.
- dredmorbius 2y agoNasa's full announcement here: <https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-starliner-spacecraft-back-to-earth-without-crew/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-star...> (From an alternate submission, I'd recommended that URL be substituted for the Twitter link.)