The future of Boeing's crewed spaceflight program muddy after Starliner's return

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/the-future-of-boeings-crewed-spaceflight-program-is-muddy-after-starliners-return/

by rbanffy • 2 years ago

38 47 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

lenerdenator• 2 years ago

The future in doubt should be the one of Boeing's C-suite and board.

ivan_gammel• 2 years ago

They just recently replaced their CEO.

jajko• 2 years ago

Something tells me it wasn't directly just CEO telling everybody to ignore any concern, fake safety reports. Yes he is ultimately responsible, but at 1-2 levels below him are actually more responsible for setting culture and controls in given department, something proper investigation can easily uncover.

jxcole• 2 years ago

He would need to fire at least 30% of the staff to make a difference. You can't fix the rot that started with the McDonald Douglas purchase by changing one person.

bell-cot2• 2 years ago

NASA obviously needs a new, reliable horse in this race.

If only the development of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser wasn't moving at a snail's pace. (That project started back in 2004; they're currently hoping for the first test flight, of an unmanned cargo version, to happen in 2025.)

HarHarVeryFunny2• 2 years ago

Why Sierra Space vs Blue Origin ?

imglorp• 2 years ago

Apples and oranges. Sierra is making a reuseable orbiter which needs a launcher and is pretty agnostic which one. Blue is making an orbital launcher but doesn't have a orbital spacecraft.

dylan6042• 2 years ago

I love how Bezos' company is never mentioned in these discussions. Seriously, why is he not competing in this space?

Retric2• 2 years ago

They skipped the small/midsized orbital rocket stage and went straight to a huge orbital launch system which has been in development for a long time and is still unproven.

New Shepard, their suborbital demonstrator, had it’s first flight 9 years ago. They could quickly prove themselves, but such a long period in development without successful orbital launches destroyed the hype.

m348e9122• 2 years ago

I love how Bezos' company is never mentioned in these discussions.

This is a good point. Not much is said about Blue Origin. Perhaps because they're overshadowed by SpaceX? But Bezos is launching rockets.

* Their New Glenn rocket is reusable and can launch 45 tons, focusing on the commercial satellite launch market. First launch in Spring of '25.

* New Shepard is more like a tourist transport, delivering passengers to the edge of space. They have completed 26 missions so far.

* They're working on Blue Moon, which is a lunar lander designed to be part of Nasa's Artemis program.

Here's a video of Bezos talking about (and showing) the first New Glenn rocket being prepared for launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu8SlfmpKM4

Disclaimer: I don't work for Bezos PR. I know very little about Blue Origin except what I learned from that video and what I got from ChatGPT.

rbanffy3• 2 years ago

Blue Origin is not building a crew launch system and New Glenn will not fly until next year, and won’t carry humans for the foreseeable future.

htrp• 2 years ago

The space agency, under a fixed price agreement, agreed to pay Boeing $4.2 billion to develop the Starliner spacecraft; SpaceX would receive $2.6 billion for the development of its Crew Dragon vehicle.
The NASA officials at the press conference said they were confident that Boeing would continue despite losing at least $1.6 billion so far on the fixed-price contract and facing more losses amid investigations into the thruster failures on Starliner's latest flight. But there were no Boeing officials to ask. In the immediate aftermath of the landing, the company issued a short statement that included this noncommittal comment about its plans: "We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."

From the article, it seems like the implication is that the program is under review from the Boeing side and not the Nasa side.

tedivm• 2 years ago

So despite getting 61% more money for the project, they not only failed to achieve what SpaceX did with less money but actually lost another $1.6b on top of it while still failing to achieve the necessary result.

Boeing just seems to be really, really bad at this.

mschuster91• 2 years ago

Boeing just seems to be really, really bad at this.

Boeing isn't contracted for results, it's contracted to disperse pork (aka jobs and money) across the districts of politicians who vote for earmarked NASA funds.

rob74• 2 years ago

It was not immediately clear why the Boeing officials declined to participate. Shannon in particular is well-loved at the space agency, and the long-term press corps appreciates his candor.

That's probably the reason why Boeing pulled him out of the press conference right there...

indoordin0saur2• 2 years ago

Why did they wait so long to make the decision to not use the Starliner for the return? Seems like an obvious choice, if the thrusters on the ship aren't functioning properly and we've got a well tested alternative ready to go in SpaceX.

valine• 2 years ago

NASA wanted to understand if the malfunctioning thrusters could operate within a margin error for safety. Boeing spent a month running a study that produced non-definitive answer as to the root cause of the problem. Had Boeing definitively demonstrated the root cause of the thruster issue NASA probably would have sent the Astronauts home on Starliner. It’s not that NASA necessarily thought that Starliner was unsafe. It’s more like they lack confidence that Boeing actually understands the problem.

indoordin0saur2• 2 years ago

Just seems weird they aren't getting picked up until February. Oh well, I guess from the astronauts' perspective this is sorta great because you spend your whole life preparing for this one great moment in your career and to get to stay up there for longer can't be a terrible thing.

Aeolun• 2 years ago

To be entirely fair to Boeing, while it’s too bad they do not understand the problem, props to them for admitting that.

Or at least, realizing that saying it’s totally safe only to have the thing explode would cause irreparable reputational harm.

bryanlarsen• 2 years ago

It landed safely, the astronauts would have been fine returning on Starliner. Given the absurd number of thrusters that Starliner has, it's still safe with a couple thrusters missing. So the question was "is it safe enough"? It's a hard judgement call. They made the right call, and making it at the last minute while waiting for more data from tests both on the ground and in space was also the right call IMO.

The future of Boeing's crewed spaceflight program muddy after Starliner's return

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