Why create a round trip space craft, when you can build and discard two one-way craft for twice the price?<p>(At first I didn't think this could really work, until I realized the second craft could have been towed up by the first.)<p>Incredible kudos to SpaceX, when you consider its comparable competitors repeatedly fumble (Boeing), move slow (Blue Origin), lost their edge (Russia), fidget spinner themselves out of relevance (ULA, Arianespace, Orbital Sciences), whiffed (Sea Launch), or very "successfully" build, launch and discard fortunes (er, flights) for the purpose of justifying those same flights (er, fortunes) (NASA).<p>Kudos to China too for some prolonged and relatively rapid progress. It will be interesting to see how that progress continues given the "Coolish War" we are now in.
The title (and premise) of this post are entirely based on a Bloomberg piece (<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-25/boeing-ceo-faces-hard-decisions-after-nasa-s-starliner-rejection?sref=YfHlo0rL" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-25/boeing-ce...</a>), with nothing but fluff added.
I watched the NASA press conference, where the decision was announced, and Bill Nelson said that the new Boeing CEO promised him he will work with NASA to keep Starliner flying.<p>It will require quite a significant investment to fix the project, while Boeing is already loosing money on this fixed price contract.
I really, really hope Boeing doesn't cancel Starliner. Trading a public space monopoly for a private one would be a huge net negative for the country.<p>The SpaceX leadership has goals that can be opaque and need not align with NASA's. Recently, in the context of X and Tesla, they've bordered on deranged and even anti-American.<p>If Boeing can get out of the learning phase, even as an imperfect company, it can provide a most valuable service even if its platform is nominally second best.
Link to the OIG report <a href="https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-015.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-015.pd...</a> for SLS Block 1B<p>> According to DCMA officials, this is a high number of CARs [Corrective
Action Requests] for a space flight system at this stage in development and reflects a recurring and degraded state of product quality control.<p>> Quality control issues at Michoud are largely due to the lack of a sufficient number of trained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing<p>If this was to be a "jobs" program more than anything, I guess that makes sense. They just added more "jobs" but never actually bothered to train anyone. Doesn't Boeing worry how this looks on them? I would be terribly embarrassed if I was anywhere adjacent to that team's leadership.<p>Searching for "Principles" brigs us to this page <a href="https://www.boeing.com/sustainability/values" rel="nofollow">https://www.boeing.com/sustainability/values</a><p>First item "Start with engineering excellence. A strong engineering foundation enables us to build and maintain our products with safety, quality and integrity in the factory and in service. Our customers expect it. That’s why we will always take the time to get the engineering right".<p>Well, they failed their very first principle, didn't they. At least don't put it right at the top, hide it down at the bottom to at least avoid being accused of hypocrisy.
My understanding was that this was a firm fixed price contract, not a cost contract. Boeing can't just cancel the contract once they are underwater, it would defeat the purpose of FFP which is to shift risk to the contractor. The government can and will demand specific performance. Usually with FFP the contractor will outline ALL assumptions made which the government will clarify and agree to. The contractor will price all of that out, apply a risk multiplier 1.5x - 2.0x and target a 30% margin on all of that. FFP contracts typically have the highest potential for profit vs. 'cost plus' contracts.
><i>NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams...will get a ride [back] on board SpaceX's Crew Dragon in February. It's an extremely unfortunate development for Boeing</i><p>That's not an unfortunate development at all. The decision to not risk human lives is based on what's already happened, it's not a new happening. If Starliner comes back successfully/safely, that will be a plus, and if it doesn't, that will be a new minus.
[dupe]<p>Some more discussion:<p><i>NASA's Starliner decision was the right one, but it's a crushing blow for Boeing</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41346778">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41346778</a><p><i>Boeing employees 'humiliated' that upstart rival SpaceX will rescue astronauts</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353404">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353404</a>
After seeing what they are doing with their commercial planes and now Starliner I can't even imagine how screwed up the defense projects are. The NASA stuff is in the public so there is some accountability. Defense on the other hand is done in secret and everybody from Pentagon procurement people down to the defense contractor have every incentive and the ability to cover up problems.
I wonder if there's some price at which Boeing could buy a license to fork the current SpaceX technology. From there they could take it in different directions if they wanted, or pay some ongoing license fee for updates & training from SpaceX. Seems like it would be very beneficial for them to start with a platform that is known to work fairly well.
First, I don't understand why the two astronauts are going to be stranded for months. After the Columbia disaster, NASA adopted a policy where another Shuttle could be scrambled if a rescue mission as required. Shuttles took a lot of processing between missions. Replacing tiles, inspecting engines, that sort of thing. The report after Columbia showed that it might have been possible to scramble another Shuttle but the timeline was super tight. NASA decided not to repeat that mistake.<p>So here we are where an 8 day mission turns into a 6 month mission because NASA (via SpaceX )doesn't have a backup? How did that happen?<p>It's also worth noting that Crew Dragon can be configured for 6 passengers. NASA uses a 4 passenger configuration because there's simply no need for a 6 person configuration... except for now.<p>It may actually end up being cheaper for Boeing to simply return the money (or negotiate a partial return) and throw up the white flag. Boeing is in such a terrible state. It's simply coasting on earlier successes and airlines being locked in to the 737 type rating.
Are we sure the Starliner can make it back?<p>Aren't there some questions about its capabilities because they seemed unable to do certain unmanned tests and there was speculation that they may have removed some of the autonomous software capabilities.<p>Has this been disproven?
> Instead, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — who flew up on the troubled capsule — will get a ride on board SpaceX's Crew Dragon in February.<p>That's...a long way away.
Would be a pity - maybe they can run cargo missions with it instead for a while?<p>But yeah just keeps pointing to the same issue: pervasive culture problems. Can't fix that by cancelling projects