NASA Says SpaceX Will Bring Boeing's Starliner Astronauts Back to Earth - in February (cnbc.com) 126
Boeing "will return its Starliner capsule from the International Space Station without the NASA astronauts," reports CNBC. Though they've been on the space station since early June, the plan is to have them stay "for about six more months before flying home in February on SpaceX's Crew-9 vehicle.
"The test flight was originally intended to last about nine days." The decision to bring Starliner back from the ISS empty marks a dramatic about-face for NASA and Boeing, as the organizations were previously adamant that the capsule was the primary choice for returning the crew. But Starliner's crew flight test, which had been seen as the final major milestone in the spacecraft's development, faced problems — most notably with its propulsion system.
"Boeing has worked very hard with NASA to get the necessary data to make this decision," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference with top NASA officials at Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday. "We want to further understand the root causes and understand the design improvements so that the Boeing Starliner will serve as an important part of our assured crew access to the ISS."
He reiterated that test flights are "neither safe, nor routine," and that the decision was the "result of a commitment to safety." NASA will now conduct another phase of its Flight Readiness Review to determine when to bring the empty Starliner home. Boeing officials had been adamant in press briefings that Starliner was safe for the astronauts to fly home in the event of an emergency, despite delaying the return multiple times. NASA said there was a "technical disagreement" between the agency and the aerospace company, and said it evaluated risk differently than Boeing for returning its crew.
Nonetheless, NASA officials repeatedly expressed support for Boeing, and Nelson said he was "100% certain" that Starliner would be able to launch with a crew again someday.
NASA posted on X.com that they'd reached the decision "after extensive review by experts across the agency.
And CNBC adds that "Ken Bowersox, NASA associate administrator, said NASA officials were unanimous in their decision to choose SpaceX to bring the crew home."
"The test flight was originally intended to last about nine days." The decision to bring Starliner back from the ISS empty marks a dramatic about-face for NASA and Boeing, as the organizations were previously adamant that the capsule was the primary choice for returning the crew. But Starliner's crew flight test, which had been seen as the final major milestone in the spacecraft's development, faced problems — most notably with its propulsion system.
"Boeing has worked very hard with NASA to get the necessary data to make this decision," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference with top NASA officials at Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday. "We want to further understand the root causes and understand the design improvements so that the Boeing Starliner will serve as an important part of our assured crew access to the ISS."
He reiterated that test flights are "neither safe, nor routine," and that the decision was the "result of a commitment to safety." NASA will now conduct another phase of its Flight Readiness Review to determine when to bring the empty Starliner home. Boeing officials had been adamant in press briefings that Starliner was safe for the astronauts to fly home in the event of an emergency, despite delaying the return multiple times. NASA said there was a "technical disagreement" between the agency and the aerospace company, and said it evaluated risk differently than Boeing for returning its crew.
Nonetheless, NASA officials repeatedly expressed support for Boeing, and Nelson said he was "100% certain" that Starliner would be able to launch with a crew again someday.
NASA posted on X.com that they'd reached the decision "after extensive review by experts across the agency.
And CNBC adds that "Ken Bowersox, NASA associate administrator, said NASA officials were unanimous in their decision to choose SpaceX to bring the crew home."
Phew! (Score:2)
That was close! I was hoping they would stay and not risk using the Boeing craft again.
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I LOVE IT... Upstart SpaceX pulls Big Boy Boeing's chestnuts out of the file and quite likely saves the two Starliner astronauts lives. If NASA has ANY sense at ALL, they'll terminate the Starliner program..
Re:It only seemed close. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why NASA took months before calling in SpaceX is for the reason NASA hates SpaceX with a passion.
Of the two "selected" return-to-space winners, Boeing's was the more expensive by a factor of two. On paper it was the "safety contingency". In reality, Boeing was NASA's "we just don't like SpaceX" pick, because NASA executives have openly despised SpaceX from the beginning. To justify the extra cost, NASA called Starliner the "contingency" - it was more expensive because it was the less riskier of the two options. Really what happened is that Boeing was selected and told "get it done before and better than Crew Dragon whatever the cost" because NASA wanted to show up SpaceX and Boeing said, ok, here's what that will cost you. To which Nasa just said yup. Boeing's job was to justify NASA in sidelining SpaceX. Every time there were conflicting NASA resources that both projects needed, Boeing was scheduled first. Even if it was a resource Boeing didn't need, any time SpaceX called up asking for some test facility, NASA would put them on hold and called Boeing on the other line and say "hey, SpaceX is asking for this, we need you to ask for it too so we can justify delaying them because you're 'already' scheduled it first". Of the two projects, Starliner was the project that NASA had the most hand's on with, and... what a shock... it was the project they almost lost on their first test flight. In fact, they [b]would[/b] have lost the vehicle if another, unrelated (but also mission-failing) bug hadn't shown up first and made them scared enough to look over all the rest of the software with a fine-toothed comb. They failed the mission, almost lost the capsule, and then NASA came really close to STILL calling it mission success and sticking people on it then just so that Boeing could finish first and have people in space before SpaceX. It was only yet another whistleblower going over NASA's head that pulled the plug on declaring all the test flight's mission goals complete and sticking people on it then. And now that they have stuck people on it, it's been a disaster.
When this happened, NASA was on the horn with Boeing saying get this the fuck fixed, and don't make us have to call SpaceX to pull your ass out. Which is why this took so long. SpaceX was on the phone the next day saying "We can get a capsule up any time you want".
NASA has proven time and again they can be trusted with exactly nothing.
My personal direct interest with NASA started with the shuttle. Like most everyone else at the time, I had a complete love affair with NASA in the 80s over the shuttle and Voyager and all the rest. I resisted disillusionment with the revelations after Challenger. But then came:
-The Mars Climate Orbiter Crater.
-The Hubble mirror scandal
-Columbia
-Curiosity
-SLS
-The Boeing StarLiner contract/development fiasco
Every one of those a complete debacle. The closer you look, the more it makes you realize the problems are 100% endemic in NASA's trough-eating self-protective pork barrel mentality. And once your bubble bursts, you then go back and revisit the love affair you had originally had with the Shuttle, and you realize that program was all, one hundred percent smoke and mirrors. The shuttle was a terrible program from beginning to end. And the whole infrastructure around it was intentionally designed to mask how truly awful it was and to mask the amount of money poured into it. The whole "reusable" thing was a ruse - the entire orbiter was basically rebuilt after each launch, and the accounting jimmied and white washed in order to hide those expenses. It was not a success - they lost 40% of their fleet and 4% of their crew in preventable circumstances. And both investigations (seventeen years apart) resulted in identical findings findings of terrible decision making and both said the problems at NASA were systemic.
And then we are gave them more billions than every private spacecraft builder combined for SLS and Orion, which were years late and triple the cost a
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Re: It only seemed close. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not saying as NASA is blameless here, but it is very much worth looking into Congressâ(TM)s role in all this.
Itâ(TM)s hard to run an efficient space program when the organization that funds you is continually asking for stupid things and requiring that you do them in stupider ways.
Re: It only seemed close. [SpaceX close to Boeing? (Score:2)
Seems to be the comment that should have been modded up, though what I was looking for was a higher level analysis of how Boeing went downhill when they started focusing too much on profit. I don't see any substantive difference in the process of NASA hiring outside companies to do the actual work. But I think NASA started with legitimate concerns about whether SpaceX was capable of delivering and many people in NASA wanted to stay with the "safe" company that had the Apollo track record.
But I'm expecting S
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I'm pretty sure the instant the words "thruster misfire" came up, everyone knew this wasn't the ship to bring the crew back. They just weren't permitted to say that out loud; they had to give Boeing a chance to make it right (even if they knew Boeing couldn't).
They could have announced such a decision immediately, which would have carried the same penalty in terms of the eventual outcome. However, they would at least have been seen as decisive, and they would have avoided all the continued attention (and eventually a bit a of ridicule) by delaying an obvious decision. Dragging their feet was neither to NASA's nor Boeing's benefit.
Meanwhile, as some legacy companies try to conjure a continued reputation for not failing, others succeed in making a business out of f
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This mission should not have happened in the first place. It's actually all on NASA, not just Boeing. The previous unmanned mission had failures that were not proven to be fixed. Sending people up in that thing was a huge risk. They are lucky it didn't crash and burn on the way up. NASA let themselves be talked into allowing it by Boeing who were losing money hand over fist with every new test mission and delay.
It may well be a year or more before they can actually fix the problems with their spacecraf
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Seems Boeing has an excellent product there (Score:2)
Excellently crappy, that is. And it serves to expose some extreme crappy people as well, that still defend this trash.
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Poor Boeing. They coasted on patriotism for decades and now they're finding out that's a very sharp double edged sword.
Their spaceship failed a test flight. I suppose I'm a crappy person for pointing out that this is the reason test flights are done?
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Their spaceship failed a test flight. I suppose I'm a crappy person for pointing out that this is the reason test flights are done?
The first Uncrewed test flight failed too
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Yes. If you want to be critical, a good place to put that criticism would be on the decision to put test pilots on a capsule that had demonstrated thruster problems in its uncrewed demonstration flight. That was a NASA call.
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Their spaceship failed a test flight.
More than one, actually.
The whole thing should be cancelled with an apology to the taxpayers for wasting our money on such a piece of shit.
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I think the difference between SpaceX and Boeing, at this point, is that SpaceX plans to fail at first. For example, it took like a dozen attempts to land a Falcon.
With Starship, their definition of success for the first launch that tore up the launch pad and hit everything in the general area with concrete debris was "makes it off the launchpad before exploding". They KNEW that the pad was insufficient for purpose but launched anyways. They knew they'd need to rebuild it, but figured they'd get one laun
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Exactly. I guess Boeing is desperate to demonstrate they can do at least one thing and has too many corrupt politicos in its pocket to get treated as it should. They probably need to kill a few more people (and they will) before they get what they deserve.
Once again (Score:5, Interesting)
But they appear to be approaching a level of incompetency that means that there is no way they should ever be allowed to deal in space exploration, any proposals they submit should be summarily rejected. They have no business being in the space business, and have become a national embarrassment.
We have been transporting people back and forth into space since the early 1960's. Boeing can't do this at all, they fail, and are not to be trusted in anything that is related to keeping people alive.
They should switch from Aeronautics to maybe delivering Pizza - if they can handle that. The CEO/Accountant quarterly reports that are now their product may put even a pizza delivery service out of business in a year or two. Other than that, I have no strong feelings on the matter.
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No thanks, the last thing I want is pizza with the pepperoni blown off.
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Oh - and they delivered it to Ulan Bator. Would you like the extra cost 'return within a month' service?
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don't be silly.
The pepperoni will not be blown off.
It's the part that explodes.
On the bright side, it probably won't be attached properly, so you might get a surviving cheese pizza.
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Re:It requires something I don't know how to do. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no way anyone can fix BOEING's damage overnight. It took 30 years to destroy the company and I would be very surprised if it takes half that time to put it back on track.
That and the fact that all the C-level will laugh all the way to the bank. Remember, the money missing to make airplanes that flight is in the investors pockets, and C-level people are drowned under stocks.
Re:It requires something I don't know how to do. (Score:4, Insightful)
If we could find a way to get the C-suite out of Boeing and keep it out, the engineers that used to run the place can fix the damage. Probably overnight.
I'm not sure about that. Boeing's management spent a lot of time nerfing the influence of both engineers and aerospace workers. It may have been largely symbolic, but around here (Washington state) that was believed to be a big part of why they shifted their headquarters out of here, where the unions for both groups were strong.
There probably aren't any Boeing engineers currently ready to step into that sort of role anymore - the ones who could were sidelined long ago, and left or retired.
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Yes, they started their union in 1945: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Were their engineers actually unionized? I thought that was exceptionally rare - engineers being represented by a union.
Yup, they've even gone on strike before! But typically they were a lot lower-key than the aerospace workers union - and, when they bargained, apparently they'd more or less say "just give us the same deal you gave the aerospace workers and we're good".
Problem is not having C-Suite, its who is in it (Score:2)
Honest, you need to have people who understand business and who understand engineer. One side is not enough.
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If we could find a way to get the C-suite out of Boeing and keep it out, the engineers that used to run the place can fix the damage. Probably overnight.
But such a company would not be profitable nor deliver products on schedule...since we all know that engineers like to tinker with things until they are just right.
Any product brought to market or created to satisfy a government contract will always be a compromise, never truly fit for purpose. Sadly, BOING! compromised too much on this spacey-craft.
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Boeing's new CEO of commercial aviation is making positive moves though. He's actually making the move to Seattle instead of Chicago. He actually says he wants to start walking the line.
Whether or not it will turn things around is yet to be seen, but at least it signals he doesn't want to isolate himself away from the production line. Whether he decides to
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The old Boeing engineers are old. And retired. The good younger ones probably quit a long time ago and went to work for SpaceX.
Those engineers are likely dead or long retired. (Score:2)
Does the US produce any nearly as capable?
Re:Once again (Score:4, Insightful)
The rest of what they do could be replaced by other companies, but their aircraft division will probably need bankruptcy-restructuring, new-ownership, or hell-if-I-know. But shutting it down is a nonstarter.
Re:Once again (Score:5, Insightful)
Even ignoring the sale of new aircraft, Boeing Commercial Airplanes going out of business would mean a lack of spare parts, service training, manuals, service bulletins, software updates and all the other things that Boeing provides to keep the huge numbers of Boeing planes flying. And if that happens, it would be chaos for the global airline industry.
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>I’ve said this before: Boeing is literally too important to shut down.
They're like Enron-important, you mean.
Re:Once again (Score:4, Insightful)
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I get the comparison. But iirc Enron was an accounting scandal, and when they went under there were a lot of paper losses, restructurings and a few executives went to prison, but the real world pretty much went on as usual. If Boeing went under, there would be major real-physical-life consequences. In addition to the 15-20 year wait for anyone to buy a large commercial jet, see the other poster’s list of consequences. A big chunk of the worlds jets could wind up grounded.
The new Boeing Jets will reach the ground quite easily, without human intervention.
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I’ve said this before: Boeing is literally too important to shut down. Well, their commercial aircraft division is. If you want to buy a decent large civilian jet, your options are a)Boeing b) Airbus if you’re willing to wait wellover 10 years or c) nevermind there’s no third option. The rest of what they do could be replaced by other companies, but their aircraft division will probably need bankruptcy-restructuring, new-ownership, or hell-if-I-know. But shutting it down is a nonstarter.
Cue really dramatic music... Now a dramatic voice... "Then. We. Shall. DIE!"
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Just stop giving money to Boeing and give it all to SpaceX (who have proven they can launch people into space and bring them back home safely). Of they want multiple choices of launcher, give some money to Blue Origin (who have also proven they can launch people into space and bring them back home safely)
Re: Once again (Score:2)
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Blue Origin has never fired a single thruster in space. New Shepard launches straight up, never pitches over, and coasts up to the Karman line; before free-falling straight back down. The fear is that Starliner will undock, maneuver a bit away from station, and then not de-orbit through lowering its perigee with the malfunctioning thrusters. The test pilots could be stranded in orbit at that point. Blue Origin has no experience with a de-orbit burn.
There is a learning curve for this rocket and life in space business.
All that said, we've been doing this stuff for quite a while. Modern Rocketry is sneaking up on the century mark, and we've been putting crew capsules into space pretty successfully since the 1960's.
As for getting rid of the Space Lemon, perhaps a future spacewalk could mount some functioning thrusters and control systems on it, then deorbit as rapidly as possible. Direct to Boeing would be impressive.
Re: Once again (Score:2)
The problem is that NASA is trying to avoid being dependent upon a single external contractor for space flight. It sounds great right now to give all the money to SpaceX, but what happens if SpaceX folds in 10 years, or has a string of bad accidents that makes NASA lose faith in them? NASA always wanted (at least) two options if they were going to be relying on the commercial sector. They also don't want to foster a space flight monopoly either, which SpaceX could very well achieve if they can maintain a s
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The real question with SpaceX is, "What happens when Gwynne Shotwell retires?"
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They also seem incompetent with aircraft stuff as well - not just space exploration.
I think Boeing also makes sateliites - that part of the company seems to be operating without any significant news. Not sure what other things they are making and making them without problems.
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NASA allowed the mission when they knew they had no experimental proof that previous problems were fixed.
Re: Once again (Score:4, Informative)
Would you believe that a sand shortage is already a real concern? Apparently there are some grades of sand that we really prefer for concrete goes the resulting mechanical properties, and we've used a lot of it up.
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The rough grades are:
Mechanically crushed rock - lots of energy so more expensive, but best.
Mountain river sand
Plains river sand
River mouth
Ocean/desert
Some buildings in China collapsed because they illegally used ocean sand.
Basically, the more jagged and rough the sand particles are, the better. You want moon rocks, not river smoothed skipping rocks.
Gilligan's Island 8 day cruise (Score:5, Funny)
On a Christmas cruise on a luxury ocean liner in the Pacific,
a passenger sees seven straggly people on a small island
jumping up and down and waving their hands and shouting.
"Who are they?" the passenger asks the captain.
"I've no idea. But each year when we pass, they go nuts."
Wow! (Score:2)
If it's a Boeing... (Score:2)
...I'm not going.
Re:If it's a Boeing... (Score:5, Informative)
That might be a bit of an over-reaction.
Boeing planes take off and land about 50,000 times a day in the US alone. https://slate.com/human-intere... [slate.com].
The last fatal crash of a Boeing plane in the US was in 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/US/boei... [go.com]
That's a whole lot of successful flights, somewhere around 91 million. I'll accept 1 in 91 million odds. It's a whole lot better than your odds of dying in a car crash, which are 1 in 38,000 in any given year. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fa... [iihs.org]
If you won't fly Boeing because of risk, you certainly shouldn't get into a car!
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Hey! What are you doing bringing rationality into a completely emotional and ignorant shitpost?
That's not going to work!
Re: If it's a Boeing... (Score:2)
Curious about delay (Score:2)
One thing that I find a little disconcerting is that the astronauts need to wait until February for a return. I am surely missing something here, but given any return vehicle could run into issues, this feels like there was never a backup plan for a crewed capsule failure?
Can anyone explain why there is such a huge delay here, with no clear short turn around time?
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I propose 2 things.
1. Boeing pay for all increased cost from the delayed departure date til the crew gets home. Including all of SpaceX's cost to get the crew back.
2. On the next launch we send the Boeing board members instead of astronauts. Everything can be flown remote! Right! And when things fail, no harm, no foul! we don't lose anything of value.
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2. On the next launch we send the Boeing board members instead of astronauts.
1% failure rate?
Those are not good odds.
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Winner of a proposal! But I'd go for the senior management first, rather than the board.
Re:Curious about delay (Score:4, Informative)
Nasa has decided that instead of returning these two astronauts as "'cargo" on the SpaceX dragon capsule with the crew-8 mission which is currently on the ISS, they will send the crew-9 mission up with only 2 astronauts (carrying 2 extra SpaceX suits) and the 2 astronauts Boeing left stranded will become part of that planned 4 person mission... and return when that mission is complete. Everyone gets strapped in to a seat. Maximum safety for the astronauts. Minimal disruption. No extra flight just to pick up stranded astronauts.
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The spacesuit compatibility may be a valid concern, and may be a reason for needing to work on making flight suits compatible, where it matters, across different capsules?
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Will have same issue - spacesuit inncompatibility with the Soyuz.
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They paid half a billion dollars to get them up there, they're going to get some work out of them. There are options to send them back with the current crew rotation if needed, but since they're up there, why not put them to work until it works into the schedule better?
Wrinkle: Space suits incompatible (Score:2)
From The stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts planned to hitch a ride home with SpaceX, but their space suits aren’t compatible with Elon Musk’s spacecraft [fortune.com] (Aug 22,2024):
NASA didn’t specify that space suits for each commercial spacecraft need to be cross-compatible with one another.
one of those alternatives includes sending the astronauts home on a Dragon spacecraft, manufactured by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, that is already docked at the station, ... And because their Starliner suits aren’t compatible with the Dragon spacecraft, they would have to return to Earth without suits on ...
Another alternative is sending the astronauts home on a different Dragon spacecraft that’s set to reach the ISS in September. This ship could reach the space station with only two of its usual four crew members and could send up extra (Dragon-compatible) space suits ...
Looks like they're pursuing the last option. Maybe it's just me, but incompatible space suits seems dumb or, at least, short-sighted.
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Duct Tape. /joke
Complete humiliation for Boeing and partners (Score:2)
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"100% certain" (Score:2)
Wow! what an endorsement. Only if NASA fires everyone and transfers their entire budget to Boeing from now until someday.
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Sounds like it's going to be the extortion way, or the highway.
Name that capsule! (Score:2)
There is a tradition of the occupants naming their capsule.
So should the occupants choose
A) SS Minor
B) Gilligan
?
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C) SS Minnow
D) USS Constellation
D) Titan*
* too soon?
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F) "Comet"
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ok, siri; explain why you autocorrected my typing C) into B). Because it ws capitalized???
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SS Minnow is appropriate. Obviously, the Professor ran away with Maryanne and Ginger to a startup leaving only Gilligan to design and build the capsule.
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Hopefully Boeing is charged for this (Score:2)
And the government should put all existing Boeing contracts on hold until Boeing gets its s**t together.
Soyouz (Score:2)
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Politics with Russia at the moment, even though the space program is traditionally not tied to military/earth geopolitical stuff. Plus, SpaceX is actually cheaper.
In addition, they'd still need things like new IVA suits, as the Russian stuff isn't compatible with the Boeing stuff either. Even the seats are apparently customized in the Russian Soyuz capsules.
Hope the astronauts (Score:2)
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I don't know about that. These are people who spend their lives trying to get to space. I wouldn't be surprised if the astronauts are glad for the opportunity. And even more glad they won't have to ride Boeing home.
It's over for Starliner (Score:2)
Not because it's unreliable and cannot be trusted to return the crew to Earth.
No, because Boeing has designed and built it with such serious flaws that it is fundamentally unreliable for manned flight. Well, any flight, I suppose.
And if this capsule fails on return and is lost, Boeing can and should kiss the program goodbye, NASA should cancel them.
SLS should be redirected to preparing for another capsule to deliver, be it a SpaceX model or some other. Honestly, SLS should also be cancelled, but NASA wants
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Re:It's over for Starliner (Score:4, Informative)
While I agree that it's a good idea for the suits to be compatible, after watching and reading up on the suits, it's actually a tall ask. SpaceX looked at the legacy space suits, how expensive and hard to use they were, and Musk ordered something better be made. They succeeded, from what I can see.
But the end results are about as similar as a gasoline vs diesel engine.
Traditional suits are expensive, modular, low pressure, manual, and pure O2.
SpaceX suits are unkown cost, custom fitted, higher pressure, automatic, and use a customizable nitro-oxy mix.
From what I can see, Boeing suits are traditional. They use 3 connections - air, cooling, and power. SpaceX integrated all three. Boeing suits are manual - the astronaut needs to adjust the oxygen and cooling themselves, SpaceX suits have sensors and do it automatically.
Boeing suits are modular - pick the closest fitting chest, match with the closest fitting arms and gloves. They have to be the largest size around the connection points, of course. They also don't fit all that well. Because SpaceX suits are all custom fitted, joints line up better, so they can be even tighter, and because they fit "just right", they can be pressurized to a higher level than traditional IVA suits, and this higher pressurization allows them to go with a nitro-oxy mix that is more natural, while still being mobile.
Another factor is that it's like 2 hours to put on a boeing suit, and it requires 2 assistants. A SpaceX suit can be donned solo in ~5 minutes.
Given the performance improvements of SpaceX, unless they turn out to be dramatically more expensive than Boeing ones, I'd go with SpaceX. Which means that the Boeing capsule would need to be redesigned to take SpaceX style suits.
You could probably build adapters - operate the SpaceX suits in a degraded fashion in a boeing craft, accepting lower pressure and pure O2, with an adapter that combines the separate inputs of Boeing into the combined system and adapts the electrical signals. Same with SpaceX - adapt the signals for Dragon to send lower pressure pure O2 instead of nitro-oxy mix and split out the connections.
But given that there's a good chance starliner dies with this return... I wouldn't worry about it until we know whether or not the Boeing effort will continue at all. ISS only has a couple years on it, after that, a lot is up in the air about any replacements.
Re: It's over for Starliner (Score:2)
It's over for Starliner. Boeing will need another $2B to 'fix' it, aka redesign the thruster system, all the other things that they to fix that we don't know about yet, and accommodate software for both manned flight and autonomous optionally... Plenty of time to decide to use SpaceX suits. But they won't. The program is dead. Take the money to fit Crew Dragon to SLS. Give Boeing the launch business and let them think through a 5 year plan to 'fix' Starliner on their nickel. Oh, wait...
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1. Fixed price contract. Boeing needs another $2B to fix it? That's money they're spending themselves.
2. I agree, the program is most likely dead. I listed "good chance" mostly to cover my bases - I've been surprised before. I think a lot depends on whether or not Starliner makes it back in a survivable re-entry or not.
3. Why would we want to fit Crew dragon to SLS? SLS is expensive old-space technology. Falcon 9 is cheaper and actually more reliable.
I'd say give Boeing a 5 year vacation from space
Re: It's over for Starliner (Score:2)
"It'd actually be cheaper at this point for Boeing to just hire SpaceX to do their launches"
That's why we would want to let Boeing exit the entire program. NASA might want launch vehicle redundancy, but SpaceX is proving that's not as important as it seems.
Called it (Score:3)
I'm sure I'm not the only one. Here's hoping the have a smooth trip back in the craft with the better history.
Least of two evils (Score:2)
[NASA] evaluated risk differently than Boeing
So that would be considering the PR disaster rather than the purely financial cost?
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Boeing cares about their bottom line and not the astronauts.
A few questions that I see unanswered... (Score:3)
1. What was the Starliner crew's involvement in the decision making?
2. Did the Starliner crew have final decision making rights/power overall?
3. Has Boeing begun the software update to allow automated undocking?
4. If yes, was the software update successful?
Question #2 would be very olde skool NASA, IMO, but may not be current thinking. IDK. Aside from that, the answers about the software updates seem most critical.
Re: (Score:2)
Haha. You think lab rats get to decide their own fate?
Hope they Make it Back Safely (Score:2)
Gilligan's Spaceship (Score:2)
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from Canaveral
Aboard this Boeing ship.
The mate was a trusted astronaut
The skipper trained and sure.
No passengers set flight that day
For a nine day tour.. a nine day tour...