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NASA Says Boeing Starliner Astronauts May Fly Home on SpaceX in 2025

GMoromisato
158 replies
20h54m

I listened to the whole conference and here's my impression:

1. NASA manager Steve Stich said there's a relatively wide "band of uncertainty" in how risky a Starliner return is. Some (many?) NASA engineers are at the high end of the band and are advocating a return on Dragon instead. Boeing is obviously at the low end of the band and thinks it is a low risk.

The problem is, the data doesn't rule out either side of the band. So they are trying to get more data to narrow the uncertainty (in either or both directions). [Interestingly enough, the data from the White Sands testing made them more worried because it revealed the Teflon seal deformation.]

But my sense is that if they don't narrow the uncertainty (i.e., convince the NASA engineers) then they will very likely choose a Dragon return. That is, it sounds like if nothing changes, the astronauts are coming down on Dragon.

2. Stich said they need to decide by mid-August, in order to have time to prepare the Crew-9 launch for Sept 24th. So we'll know by then.

3. They emphasized that (a) the thruster problems are all fixable (given time), and (b) that even if Starliner returns without a crew, they will have learned enough from the test to potentially certify the capsule for regular service. This is probably the only way they'll be able to keep Boeing as a provider. A redo of this mission would cost Boeing half a billion dollars, easy. And since the contract is fixed-price, this would just add to Boeing's losses. So I expect they will certify Starliner even if it comes down without a crew.

4. In some ways, Starliner is being held to a higher standard than Dragon Crew-2. If Starliner were the only vehicle available, NASA and the astronauts would absolutely take the small risk and come down with a crew. But since Dragon is available, I think NASA is thinking, "why take the risk?"

5. There's a huge difference between how NASA engineers and lay people look at this issue. Many people (particularly on Twitter) have a binary safe/not-safe view of the situation. Either Starliner is safe or it is not. Either the astronauts are stranded or they are not. But the engineering perspective is all about dealing with uncertainty. What is the probability of a bad result? Is the risk worth the reward? Even worse, everything is a trade-off. Sometimes trying to mitigate a risk causes an unintended effect that increases risk (e.g., a bug fix that causes a bug).

I don't envy the engineers, either at NASA or at Boeing.

somenameforme
56 replies
10h27m

I think many might not be aware of Starliner's sordid history. It has failed essentially every qualification test in various ways. Their pad abort test (where you simulate a launch abort while on the launch pad) resulted in only 2 of the 3 parachutes deploying in beyond optimal conditions. NASA considered that such a resounding success that they let them completely skip the far more challenging in-flight abort test. Their first automated mission to the ISS completely failed and did not make it to the station. NASA finally required a redo from Boeing and their second one did make it to the ISS, but only after experiencing widespread leaks and thruster failures literally identical to the ones that have now left these astronauts stranded.

If SpaceX or another company had remotely similar results, they would never have been greenlit. For instance in spite of a flawless pad abort test, NASA required SpaceX also carry out an in-flight abort. And that's completely reasonable - you don't simply skip tests, even with optimal performance. Skipping tests following suboptimal performance is simply unjustifiable. And so I think we're largely looking at another Challenger type disaster caused by a disconnect between management (and likely political appointees) versus engineering staff, rather than inherent risk. But this is not a vessel that should have ever had a single human anywhere near it, and so their official comments (and even actions) on the situation are going to be heavily biased due to their own behaviors.

_joel
24 replies
8h50m

They also wrapped their avionics cables in flammable tape and had to redo everything. The original, approved tape was still available, not a supply issue. I think that is pretty telling.

xattt
18 replies
8h34m

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

/s

dfxm12
12 replies
5h6m

A contronym is a word with two opposite meanings

Inflammable has one meaning.

Qwertious
10 replies
4h54m

"in" denotes the opposite, so "inflammable" has been used to mean not flammable due to expectations of grammatical consistency, and as a result the word is generally preferred to be avoided entirely nowadays in favor of either "flammable" (or "highly flammable"), or "nonflammable".

jfengel
4 replies
4h42m

"Flammable" is such a weird word. Folk etymology would derive it from a transitive verb "to flame" that doesn't really exist (i.e. is not used, at least not that way).

There is a transitive verb "to inflame", which is common. It derives from the noun "flame" and the prefix "in-", which when applied to nouns makes it a verb meaning "to cause [the noun]".

They also ignored the common word "inflammation", which nobody thinks means "to stop your tissues from flaring up".

None of that matters. People parsed "inflammable" differently and arrived at a new meaning. But I just find it odd that, while doing that parsing, they never considered that they never use the verb "to flame" in ordinary speech.

xattt
1 replies
4h35m

Inert occurs in the same “domain” of chemistry that suggests as nothing will occur to a given material.

smcin
0 replies
3h39m

"Inert" goes further, it says the material is chemically unreactive.

Whereas wood or fabric could be flammable or nonflammable depending on how it's coated or treated.

carapace
0 replies
3h11m

Ayuh, it's English, it doesn't have to make sense as long as it makes sense.

ToValueFunfetti
0 replies
3h38m

'Flame' as in 'to catch fire' has some rare usage in English- "The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again" says Shakespeare. The more common usages are metaphorical- 'flame with passion', or more modern 'flamed them online', though I don't really see that usage much anymore either.

lostlogin
3 replies
4h7m

the word is generally preferred to be avoided entirely nowadays in favor of either "flammable" (or "highly flammable"), or "nonflammable

Noninflammable for the maniacs.

PaulDavisThe1st
1 replies
3h2m

Uninflammable, please.

speleding
0 replies
2h28m

+1 By the way, Dutch has "onontvlambaar"

rtkwe
0 replies
3h28m

English Trying to make sense for one second challenge. Level: Impossible

It's always amusing all the gotchas that exist in English. I'm glad I grew up in it rather than trying to learn it as a second language.

bunderbunder
0 replies
3h32m

This interpretation is based on incorrect decomposition of the word.

In this case, the "in" prefix means "in/on". Think of it as "inflame" + "able". Similar to how "inflammation" doesn't mean "a state of not burning" and "inflamed" doesn't mean "not burning". Also see "ingress", "ingest", "inaugurate".

I'm only an armchair etymologist and this is wild speculation, but I think that the meaning of the "in" prefix might depend on whether we get the word directly from Latin, or whether it comes through French.

singleshot_
0 replies
3h3m

That's arguably a factoid.

huppeldepup
1 replies
4h33m

We should coax them into using coax instead.

romwell
0 replies
1h16m

Or, we should ax that co. from supplying space missions.

pfdietz
0 replies
7h29m

My eyes get inflamed just reading the word, wondering where it could have come from.

cnlevy
0 replies
5h10m

To fix your word, just wrap it in-flammable tape. Not sure it's going to work, thats what they did with Starliner anyways.

belter
4 replies
3h27m

They also wrapped their avionics cables in flammable tape

Who approved the design, and are the Engineers still employed by Boeing? Curious minds would like to know. Any way to trace this from public documentation?

dotnet00
2 replies
2h45m

IIRC it was Kapton tape, technically what they did was fine, Kapton tape is commonly used for things like that. The problem was that they used it in places that might get hotter than the tape was rated for.

Edit: Actually, looking around a bit, doesn't seem like there's any official mention of what kind of tape it was. Kapton tape seems to be the popular assumption but there's no evidence of it.

idiotsecant
0 replies
4m

It might not even be a fat-finger, they might legitimately use 200C rated tape where it's needed and 155C tape where the higher spec is not needed. I am not a kapton expert but maybe higher temp ratings are less flexible or less resistant to hard vacuum or something like that. This might just be a plain old engineering QA issue. These are complex machines, and these sorts of things happen.

I don't know how space-rated QA works, as I am but a lowly terrestrial engineer, but I imagine there are specs for each portion of the machine calling out electrical ratings, temperature ratings, vibration ratings, etc. If the spec definitions for that section of machine are bad it's hard to do proper QA against those specs.

fnordpiglet
0 replies
2h7m

Accounting.

michaelt
16 replies
4h58m

> It has failed essentially every qualification test in various ways. [...] Their first automated mission to the ISS completely failed and did not make it to the station. NASA finally required a redo from Boeing and their second one did make it to the ISS, but only after experiencing widespread leaks and thruster failures

I don't follow spaceflight news in any great depth - but doesn't SpaceX also have a rocket thingy that keeps exploding?

Isn't "just launch over and over until it stops exploding" the way rockets are made these days?

tim333
6 replies
4h51m

Different types of tests. The SpaceX ones were mostly supposed to do that.

HWR_14
5 replies
4h40m

How do you know what kind of test it was supposed to be?

dotnet00
3 replies
4h32m

You follow the news and the public statements on the goals of the test? SpaceX isn't exactly tight lipped about their philosophy and what they hope to learn from each test.

HWR_14
2 replies
1h57m

Can you share an example of a pre-launch announcement so I know what they hope to learn? I haven't seen anything about any upcoming test's goals as they approach, but I also don't know where I would look.

dotnet00
0 replies
1h17m

Usually on SpaceX's X or Musk's X, for example:

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1762237289231757406

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798692089766805813

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1792629142141177890

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1783929534955589885

Or SpaceX's summaries for after the test:

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-...

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-...

There also tend to be good articles from dedicated space reporters like Eric Berger, Stephen Clark or Michael Shaetz:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/we-know-starship-can-f...

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/06/spacex-starship-fourth-test-...

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/spacex-video-teases-po...

The "mainstream" reporting on these tends to be pretty awful and a glaring display of Gell-Mann Amnesia, but the more popular space journalists tend to be pretty good. I provided specific examples because there are also "journalists" known for intentionally distorting the facts to prop up their biases.

The goals for the next flight test seem to be to try to catch the booster (if they can get the necessary regulatory clearances) and to try to perform a controlled reentry of Starship again, this time with an upgraded heat shield to hopefully take less damage than the previous attempts. It'll end up being mainly a control systems and shield material test since future prototypes which are already being built have changes to the fin locations which also mitigate some of the heat shield issues seen in the previous test.

There's also talk of towing it to Australia after splashdown to study (also depends on if they can get the necessary regulatory clearances).

I wouldn't be surprised if the goals change though, I feel like they might decide to do another simulated catch over water for the booster (since while it was technically successful in IFT-4, one engine did blow up), and similarly I doubt they'll have the clearances to tow the ship to Australia as fast as they'd like.

macksd
0 replies
56m

SpaceX is pretty open about optimizing for many iterations, a bit like the philosophy in software of shipping an MVP to get user feedback sooner for future iterations. Boeing has an established culture that's more like traditional waterfall development. When you watch their launches, they have tiers of objectives that get less and less likely to succeed - they plan to push even if failure is likely tlso they can learn from both their successful objectives and the eventual failure.

NoahKAndrews
2 replies
4h36m

It's a different philosophy. Starship (the in-development SpaceX rocket) has taken the "test as fully as you can add often as you can" route, and no people will be getting on it until it's reached a high level of reliability.

Starliner was not developed that way at all. It was supposed to be developed with much more up-front work to make sure that it would work correctly out of the gate. All of the mentioned Starliner tests were certification tests, whereas all of the Starship tests so far have been 100% expected to fail in some way, but with a more ambitious goal about how far it gets.

Dalewyn
1 replies
2h24m

Putting this more bluntly:

Starship: "We expect this to fail, but we will learn valuable lessons." -> Fails -> "That was fun! Next!"

Starliner: "We expect this to succeed." -> Fails. "Well, shit."

Fundamentally different engineering and design philosophies.

Jtsummers
0 replies
36m

It's not a difference in philosophies, it's different stages of development and testing.

Starship and Starliner are very different things. Starship is the launch vehicle and a novel one (as in, it's not just a rebuild of an existing system, it's got new components and design elements). The failures we've seen so far were all, to some extent, expected though the particular modes of failure may not have been anticipated. They were launched with the intent of discovering the failure modes and responding to them with changes to design and manufacturing.

Starliner is now where Dragon Crew was with DM-2. Both tested with uncrewed flights and various test scenarios before their crewed flights. DM-2 and this flight are flights where nothing should go wrong. Failure, or critical failures at least, are unanticipated events. Otherwise you wouldn't be putting people in them yet (both vehicles are capable of operating autonomously, there's no reason to put a person in them if you aren't confident in the vehicle). The same philosophy applies to both Dragon Crew and Starliner at this stage.

BurningFrog
1 replies
4h16m

Completely different case, though most reporting doesn't make that clear.

The first time you build a physical rocket and test sending it up, it's almost certain to fail. Seeing how and why it explodes is pretty much the purpose of launching it!

supportengineer
0 replies
3h46m

I could say the same thing about software

ranger207
0 replies
3h12m

Yes, SpaceX has a rocket that keeps exploding, which is their new in development rocket Starship. They don't use Starship to launch people yet though; they use their much more reliable Falcon 9 instead. Blowing up rockets while they're in development is fine; blowing up rockets that have people on them is less fine. Boeing's Starliner should not have carried people until all its developmental problems were resolved

inglor_cz
0 replies
1m

"Isn't "just launch over and over until it stops exploding" the way rockets are made these days?"

If the cargo was a bunch of rocks and Boeing paid for the launch, you would have been right.

But this was a manned mission ordered by the US government. At this phase of development, nothing should be left to chance.

ekimekim
0 replies
4h50m

The issue is that you don't normally let humans on them until you've proven they don't explode. If Boeing had followed each of those incidents with a re-do where everything went perfectly, it wouldn't be a problem.

FactolSarin
0 replies
4h51m

That's SpaceX's philosophy, but Boeing operates on a measure-twice build-once philosophy where everything is supposed to be close to perfect in the first place.

tim333
3 replies
9h10m

Sounds like it might be better if Boeing dropped out if their thing doesn't work properly, costs much more and is mostly in there through political lobbying.

MPSimmons
2 replies
3h14m

I am certain that if Boeing thought that they could drop this without repercussions, they would absolutely do it.

lupusreal
1 replies
2h8m

They said a year or two back they will refuse to take on new fixed-price contracts going forward. Apparently the only way they can be profitable is by scamming taxpayers.

NickC25
0 replies
27m

Time for nationalization, then.

If a producer of critical infrastructure cannot make profit without cutting corners, it should be nationalized so that the need to place profit ahead of anything and everything the producer does is eliminated.

mensetmanusman
3 replies
3h21m

There will be businesses cases written about what happens when any organization becomes completely over burdened by risk mitigation. This applies to government as well. One reason nothing can be done. (Also interestingly it correlates nicely with the average age of decision makers as they approach death).

hedora
1 replies
3h12m

The issue with Boeing isn’t risk mitigation.

The problem is that they have managers that don’t understand basic engineering and manufacturing practices, and that focus entirely on short-term financial engineering.

Case studies for those sorts of mistakes have already been written. For example, look at the US automotive bailout and collapse of Detroit, or read up on IBM and GE’s performance over the last decade.

radicaldreamer
0 replies
23m

AT&T is another one and you’re seeing the same thing play out in the entertainment sector with Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney and one could argue Google is on the same path.

Financial engineering is a dead end in multiple industries but will continue unabated because of how the management employee lifecycle works — the people who run companies into the ground are long retired with their huge comp packages by the time the company is defunct.

lenerdenator
0 replies
1h21m

It's fairly obvious at this point that Boeing's problem isn't one of too much risk mitigation.

fredgrott
1 replies
5h55m

name one Soyuz operation to the same space station that resulted in a similar failure....

It would seem that Dragon is being held up to the same standard that was set for Soyuz...Boeing is the only one failing....

We are looking at a testing and engineering failure combined of Boeing.

kevin_thibedeau
0 replies
4h24m

Soyuz MS-22 had to be ditched last year due to its coolant failure.

autokad
1 replies
1h39m

I think shade needs thrown at NASA for taking too long to make SpaceX a part of this solution. If they are sending up an unproven vehicle, why not have SapceX already on stand by? These astronauts should have been home in June, now they are saying they might not be home until 2025? someone needs fired.

adgjlsfhk1
0 replies
1h7m

because astronauts being in space isn't a problem. the ISS always has a capsule docked to it in case emergency evacuation is needed

throwawaymaths
0 replies
1h29m

You forgot (IIRC) 1/4 parachutes failing on the landing of second launch and the cables on the remaining parachutes not being within load factor.

panick21_
0 replies
3h17m

This is a highly inacccurate post.

The companies could themselves propose certification and NASA only said if it is ok, if you didnt test you had do more certification work. NASA didnt require an abort test for either company. SpaceX just decided to have one, Boeing didnt.

The parachute test had nothing to do with abort tests.

WalterBright
27 replies
12h31m

I don't envy the engineers, either at NASA or at Boeing.

When I worked at Boeing, I talked with my lead engineer about this. He said there were indeed some excellent engineers who could not live with the possiblity of making a mistake. Boeing would find jobs for them that were not safety critical, like design studies of new aircraft. There they could be productive without the stress.

Personally, I found the stress to be motivating. It meant I was doing something that mattered.

stavros
22 replies
9h46m

I find the solution of giving non-safety-critical posts to the engineers that care most about safety very indicative of the culture at Boeing.

eqvinox
12 replies
8h46m

"engineers who could not live with the possiblity of making a mistake" is not the same as "engineers that care most about safety"

stavros
10 replies
8h34m

You think they'll be sloppy about safety and then just kill themselves when someone dies?

cptskippy
3 replies
4h33m

You think the entire Starliner project is just engineers being sloppy?

stavros
1 replies
3h50m

Of course not, if there's one thing Boeing is famous for right now, that's their attention to safety.

I believe their motto is "Safety to the Max".

cptskippy
0 replies
3h20m

So why do you assume that they'll be slopping and kill themselves? Why is that the only option? Couldn't someone make a mistake? Couldn't the person just be riddled with guilt and just abandon their career.

jjk166
0 replies
3h17m

I'd prefer not to believe they tried to screw up on purpose.

ahmedfromtunis
3 replies
7h26m

Back when I started engineering school, we tended to add more constraints to systems than what they actually need believing that we were making them more secure and "safer".

"This will make sure we cover edge cases we're not aware of", we thought.

Later we discovered such systems are called "hyperstatic" and that they are actually more fragile and more prone to malfunction. What we should've aimed for are isostatic systems, where less constraints meant more stable systems.

I'm not saying Boeing engineering aren't aware of this. Of course they do. I just wanted to show an example of how trying to avoid mistakes *may* lead to less safe systems.

stavros
2 replies
7h8m

Sure, but this just assumes they don't know what they're doing (which, well, is probably true). It doesn't refute the point that you want to put people who are obsessive about safety in charge of safety.

I work for a healthcare company, and we definitely put in charge of safety people who stress about a patient coming to harm, not people who are so-so about it.

ethbr1
1 replies
6h21m

I read GP as relocating people who were paralyzed by safety.

E.g. the developers who never ship code because they always want to write the better version of the thing, that they thought up while building the current version

At some point you have to look at a less than perfect design and answer the question of whether it's good enough for the requirements at hand.

WalterBright
0 replies
12m

It's about engineers who are paralyzed by the thought that if they make a mistake, people will die.

It's not about striving for perfection.

Gracana
1 replies
6h30m

It sounds like they'd burn out and quit, and management would rather find them a place where they can stay than lose them.

WalterBright
0 replies
11m

It's not about burnout. It's about otherwise competent engineers who are paralyzed by fear of making a mistake.

Finding a productive place for them, where their expertise counts, but peoples' lives don't hang on the results, is just good management.

WalterBright
0 replies
1h47m

Right. Some want to work on the hard safety issues because they do care about it.

Yeul
7 replies
6h59m

It's space. If you want safe you stay at home. There will always be a risk when you ride a rocket into orbit.

93po
4 replies
6h44m

should we apply this to boeing's planes too?

michaelt
0 replies
4h49m

Yes, there will always be a risk when you ride a 737 into orbit too.

Twirrim
0 replies
2h14m

Yes, just like you also do with Airbus too, and any other plane manufacturers. You already factor in risk every time you set foot in a car, too, and a car is a far more dangerous vehicle. Danger from crashing is an inherent danger in travelling faster than on foot, and when you're on foot you're also facing the risk of being hit by those moving in those fast vehicles.

Loughla
0 replies
5h45m

No because we're not talking about that.

Dalewyn
0 replies
2h14m

Should be applied to aircraft in general, yes.

It is mind boggling just how many things need to work perfectly constantly consistently to maintain safe flight. This goes for both Boeing and Airbus (and Embraer, Cessna, et al.); all of General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls Royce; etc.

stavros
1 replies
6h46m

Yes, there are no degrees of safety, might as well strap yourself to a cannon bomb and ride it!

generalizations
0 replies
1h5m

engineers who could not live with the possiblity of making a mistake

The whole point, as I read it, is that those engineers could not handle "degrees of safety".

HeyLaughingBoy
0 replies
3h30m

That's not remotely what he said.

GMoromisato
2 replies
11h54m

Very interesting insight. Thank you!

Right now, I’m sure Starliner engineers are under a lot of stress. But I really believe that the program will get through this and end up being successful.

WalterBright
1 replies
11h15m

It's a bit like finals in college. I knew that without the stress from the threat of failing the finals, I wouldn't apply myself to learning the material. Stress brings out the best in people.

HPsquared
0 replies
10h35m

It's like "angle of attack" in a wing (funnily enough, given the topic).

Increasing it works up to a point (increasing lift) but at the cost of increased drag and, at a certain point, a stall. I've found myself, at different points, "coasting" (gliding) and "stalling" (pulling up too hard when I'm not in the right conditions). Long-term burnout is like being "behind the power curve" and gradually losing energy.

tracker1
0 replies
3h10m

It's hard for me to imagine... I've been in a position to work on training software for some aerospace equipment and maintenance, but even that was well defined before I touched it. The closest I've come to that level of stress was working on security provisioning around financial systems. Hard to imagine being responsible directly for people's lives, not just livelihood.

boxed
21 replies
10h45m

In some ways, Starliner is being held to a higher standard than Dragon Crew-2

Maybe. I don't believe that's true, but let's assume it is.

They SHOULD be held to a higher standard. Of the 16 US astronauts that have died in the space program, 14 died on the shuttle which was Boeing. That, coupled with Boeings recent deterioration and demonstrated disregard for human life, makes it clear that Boeing needs to be kept on a short leash.

itishappy
9 replies
4h39m

As opposed to SpaceX with literally no history of human rated spaceflight? Neither of these companies have earned reduced standards...

Edit: To clarify, this applies to the certification process, not current performance.

cptskippy
4 replies
4h11m

They've launched 12 crew missions in the last 44 months putting 46 people in orbit.

itishappy
3 replies
3h51m

Right, but first they certified it for human-rated spaceflight by scrutinizing it very closely and testing it very rigorously.

cptskippy
2 replies
3h18m

They certified a modification to an existing spacecraft that was already proven. Starliner is a bespoke from scratch vehicle.

itishappy
1 replies
2h26m

Are you suggesting they did or should have relaxed the human-rated spaceflight certification standards for Crew Dragon?

cptskippy
0 replies
59m

No, they actually have made them go through more rigor than Starliner has been subject to.

What I'm saying is that Dragon was built upon an existing proven platform. The effort needed to convert the cargo module for human spaceflight is less than the effort Boeing needed to create a module from scratch. AND SpaceX still had to go through more rigor with Crew Dragon than what Boeing has had to do with Starliner.

The certification standards for Starliner have been reduced compared to Dragon, and Boeing is asking for them to be reduced further still.

cwillu
3 replies
4h1m

You're aware that SpaceX routinely performs crewed missions, right? There's been at least a dozen now.

itishappy
2 replies
3h48m

How many of those happened before testing and certification was completed?

cwillu
1 replies
2h18m

If you count the ones from before certification was complete, then there was one more than I counted. A baker's dozen instead of an even dozen launches.

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasa-and-spacex-complet...

“The Crew Dragon, including the Falcon 9 rocket and associated ground systems, is the first new, crew spacecraft to be NASA-certified for regular flights with astronauts since the space shuttle nearly 40 years ago. Several critical events paved the way for this achievement, including grounds tests, simulations, uncrewed flight tests and NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 test flight with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley earlier this year.” [from 2020]

Dragon did test flights demonstrating that the systems worked, Starliner has so far only done test flights demonstrating that the systems do not, plus a pinky promise that it'll work the next time. We do not know if, say, the abort system works, because the only time it was subjected to a full test, it failed. This is not a matter of SpaceX not having experience building human-rated craft and trying to get unearned credit for competence, this is a matter of Boeing trying to use their history to get unearned credit.

itishappy
0 replies
2h12m

In the context of standards used for certification, I would count only flights from before certification was complete.

There was one flight with two crew to the ISS: the same test Starliner is currently attempting.

I agree with your analysis that Boeing does not deserve to have lowered standards. I'm suggesting that neither did Crew Dragon before certification. I'm not suggesting their systems or records are comparable, I'm simply arguing that unproven systems should be tested rigorously before being certified for human-rated spaceflight.

HPsquared
8 replies
10h38m

Boeing didn't make the space shuttle.

big-green-man
3 replies
10h26m

Boeing did largely design build the orbiter, which is the reusable spacecraft that's commonly referred to as the space shuttle, although it was only a part of the entire space shuttle program. Both disasters though were not the fault of the orbiter but caused by failures of the boosters and tank, neither of which were built by Boeing, but these projects are supposed to be designed holistically and so I'd say all the companies involved in that project share responsibility for the shortcomings of the design.

HPsquared
2 replies
10h0m

Rockwell International made the orbiter. Unless they were later merged into Boeing and now perhaps involved in Starliner?

skissane
0 replies
7h52m

In the early 1970s, NASA had three contractors helping it to design the Space Shuttle: Rockwell, Lockheed, and a Boeing-Grumman joint venture. So Boeing definitely played a role in designing it, although exactly how big its role was in the design, as opposed to the other contractors, I don’t know.

https://www.spaceline.org/united-states-manned-space-flight/...

However, Boeing was not originally one of the main contractors for the actual construction/operation/maintenance of the Space Shuttle. It later became one by buying Rockwell’s space division

big-green-man
0 replies
9h55m

Yeah, Rockwell was broken up and that part of the company is now Boeing Defense, although i do think Boeing was directly involved in designing of the shuttle back then. Now you've got me wondering if I'm mistaken about that.

nobleach
2 replies
5h6m

In the case of the Challenger accident, the actual orbiter wasn't the problem. The seals on the solid rocket boosters were. That said, I don't know who was responsible for their design/manufacture.

vlachen
0 replies
3h58m

The teams responsible for their design and manufacture were sounding the alarm about the o-rings being out of their operational envelope. It was management at the manufacturer and NASA that decided to proceed.

philipwhiuk
0 replies
7h36m

They love to claim they did as part of their legacy.

big-green-man
1 replies
10h34m

While I don't disagree with you, I think it's important to point out that 3 american astronauts died during the Apollo 1 ground test.

jjk166
0 replies
2h57m

Apollo 1 was built by North American Aviation, which was acquired by Rockwell, which is now part of Boeing.

tgsovlerkhgsel
14 replies
11h36m

Certifying a vehicle based on a test/qualification flight that was such a failure that it was considered too risky to let the crew fly back on the vehicle sounds about as reasonable as letting Boeing self-certify their airplane safety (instead of FAA oversight), or adding an automated nosedive-the-plane system with a non-redundant sensor just to avoid some training.

Sure, it is cheap, but when, not if, it results in deaths, it will be really hard to justify why someone thought it was a reasonable choice.

cowsandmilk
6 replies
11h21m

An unmanned flight back still significantly narrows the ban of what the risks are and if the return is successful, the returned craft will certainly be inspected in extreme detail.

JonChesterfield
5 replies
10h47m

The returned craft is going to be hard to reassemble from the pieces scattered across the surface of the planet, whether there were people in it or not.

HPsquared
3 replies
10h42m

It's unlikely to actually fail, just not unlikely enough to send the astronauts in.

Aaargh20318
2 replies
10h6m

The problem is in the service module which will be jettisoned and burn up in the atmosphere.

pfdietz
0 replies
7h26m

Clearly NASA should wait until Starship is available to return the entire thing to Earth in once piece (I'm assuming it will fit or could be made to fit.) :)

HPsquared
0 replies
9h58m

Ah, I see.

jjk166
0 replies
3h8m

So long as the crew capsule makes it back properly, that means the service module was good enough to get the job done.

They'd also have data collected during the return voyage.

ragebol
3 replies
10h45m

There is also a risk with Dragon, just estimated to be lower. But both are still space capsules, there is a risk involved with both.

pfdietz
1 replies
7h25m

They're safer than the Shuttle was, though. Capsules are designed (I believe) to survive total loss of control on entry, although a purely ballistic entry can have decelerations of up to 15 gees, IIRC.

pixl97
0 replies
3h17m

The capsule will survive, the strawberry jelly on the inside, not so much.

jjk166
0 replies
3h1m

This is a semantic failure. There's risk to everything. But there is a qualitative difference between the risk something might malfunction and that something which has already malfunctioned might be dangerous.

A house full of fire hazards which is nevertheless not on fire can not be directly compared to a house that is currently on fire.

GMoromisato
2 replies
3h33m

You should read about Apollo 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_6

Apollo 6 was an uncrewed test flight of the Saturn V. It was almost a disaster. Pogo oscillations almost tore the vehicle apart. And after staging, two engines shut down early and the rocket had to go into a lower orbit than planned.

But that flight was enough to certify the Saturn V for human use and they launched 3 astronauts to the moon on the next Saturn V flight, Apollo 8.

peterfirefly
0 replies
1h8m

And pogo oscillations continued to be a big problem for the Saturn V rockets...

HeyLaughingBoy
0 replies
3h22m

One of the interesting things about testing is how you interpret the results.

e.g., you have to run three test cases with passing results to pass the overall test and certify the system.

So, you run the test. All three test cases pass with flying colors, but during test #3, something that you hadn't thought of came up and it could be a problem.

What do you do now? You've reached your stated qualification for passing the test but now there's this wrinkle. Which one should take precedence in certifying the system for use?

verandaguy
9 replies
5h50m

    > This is probably the only way they'll be able to keep Boeing as a provider. A redo of this mission would cost Boeing half a billion dollars, easy. And since the contract is fixed-price, this would just add to Boeing's losses.
As much as I get that Boeing is a major launch partner for the US in general and one of the only companies competing in the crewed space in the States right now, I don't get this part.

It's not NASA's job to keep Boeing in the running. It's completely up to Boeing to produce a vehicle that can safely and reliably get crews to and from orbit, and to do the appropriate amount of testing beforehand. If they can't be bothered to do that with the understanding the cost of failure, that's on them.

HWR_14
7 replies
4h37m

It certainly is part of NASA's job to consider long term space travel needs. And supporting a competitor to SpaceX now as a long term strategic benefit has a lot of value as opposed to being held hostage to monopoly pricing in the future.

Companies invest in their supply chain and invest in not being beholden to a single supplier (unless they control that supplier) all the time.

verandaguy
2 replies
4h0m

Surely we can agree though, that given Boeing's recent track record and how they've handled calls for improved processes, combined with NASA's typical standard of safety and care, they aren't a good strategic long-term choice, right?

Like, I understand what you're saying here, and I agree -- if the US wants to have serious private-sector competition in the space sector, that's arguably a good thing. SpaceX's advances in reducing launch costs by implementing launch vehicle reusability to a degree that was never seriously approached before are objectively a good thing for the sector. Some of the work Firefly appears to be doing is really interesting, and could lower the cost of much of the work around launches substantially. Blue Origin also exists and may at some point be more than a billionaire's vanity project.

Boeing isn't the only competitor in this space, and some of the smaller companies are hungrier. They're actively innovating, and because their existence is on the line, they do the work to make sure their projects are beyond reproach by the time they're picking up NASA work or sending people into orbit (usually with a pretty high degree of success).

HWR_14
1 replies
2h0m

I mean, Boeing is certainly a good strategic long-term choice today for an alternative because they are one of 2 companies that have the capability to launch people into orbit. If you are saying that a different company should have been chosen 10 years ago, that's different. If you're saying that NASA should also invest in smaller companies, possibly.

verandaguy
0 replies
1h52m

    > they are one of 2 companies that have the capability to launch people into orbit
This is currently, actively, under question.

I'm sticking to my guns here -- Boeing and NASA being in this position is not an excuse to go easy on them, cut corners, or otherwise lower any standards. If the US wants to use taxpayer money to prop up the crewed spaceflight sector (which I would agree with in principle despite it not being my tax dollars -- this is IMO an investment in the future and a way to stay competitive on the world stage), then they should reevaluate their approach to a public sector crewed spaceflight option where fewer parts of the process are profit driven.

SLS was a flop but that doesn't mean that the next thing has to be, and while public spaceflight projects absolutely do subcontract work out when it comes to building components, there are big, traditionally-expensive parts of the project that can be offloaded to public agencies where profit isn't a consideration.

dotnet00
1 replies
4h27m

That feels completely like an excuse used after the fact to justify keeping Boeing around rather than a principled stance, considering that NASA and Congress were pretty set on just giving Boeing the sole source contract for crew transport to the station.

It's pretty well documented by Lori Garver, one of the people involved in pushing Commercial Crew, how strong the opposition was from both NASA and Congress.

darknavi
0 replies
0m

At this point it'd probably be money better spent raising up a Blue Origin commercial crew program than propping up the corpse of Boeing.

kjkjadksj
0 replies
2h23m

It would probably be cheaper still for nasa to employ all of starliners engineers outright, sans management and shareholder profit making. Plus they’d have their own in house rocket design arm building stuff at cost.

jjk166
0 replies
3h36m

If NASA, and more importantly its budgetary oversight (congress) sufficiently values an additional supply chain, it can invest more money in additional tests to get that additional supply chain.

If the value of the additional supply chain does not justify paying more, they can let boeing pay out of their own pocket, or let them drop out. The whole reason Boeing was given a fixed price contract at the beginning was so that this option could be exercised.

Lowering the bar is not making an investment.

dblohm7
0 replies
2h28m

It's not NASA's job to keep Boeing in the running.

In theory it is not. The reality is that a lot of NASA's budgeting and decisions are made based on the pork-barrel politics of the ones who hold the purse strings -- congress.

datenwolf
9 replies
8h44m

Some (many?) NASA engineers are at the high end of the band and are advocating a return on Dragon instead. Boeing is obviously at the low end of the band and thinks it is a low risk.

To me this gives a strong impression of history rhyming with itself. Back in the early 1980ies NASA engineers "close to the hardware" were raising warning, above warning about reliability issues of the shuttles, ultimately being overruled by management, leading to the Challenger disaster.

Then in 2003 again engineers were raising warnings about heat shield integrity being compromised from impacts with external tank insulation material. Again, management overruled them on the same bad reasoning, that if it did not cause problems in the past, it will not in the future. So instead of addressing the issue in a preventative action, the Columbia was lost on reentry.

Fool me once …, fool me twice …; I really hope the engineers will put their foot down on this and clearly and decisively overrule any mandate directed from management.

philipwhiuk
2 replies
7h37m

If the concerns aren't addressed then there's a defined process by which the NASA Administrator (Nelson) has to sign it off.

NASA has learnt from the bad days of blind Mission Management teams.

netsharc
0 replies
4h38m

If one wants to be generous, maybe he means dark "to us" because we never see it from the earth.

HWR_14
1 replies
4h35m

How many times have engineers been safely overruled?

realslimjd
0 replies
1h34m

It doesn't matter when there are lives needlessly at risk. The answer should be zero.

neuronic
0 replies
4h42m

Until management is held accountable and put into prison for their conscious unreasonable decisions against all advice, which led to the loss of life, nothing will ever change in megacorps.

bunderbunder
0 replies
3h18m

Scott Manley mentioned an interesting twist on this in a recent YouTube video of his: Kamala Harris, chair of the National Space Council, becoming a candidate in this year's Presidential election. The NSC is supposed to guide policy, so she wouldn't normally be involved in this kind of nitty-gritty, but there are people all up and down the hierarchy who would be well aware that this isn't how the media or her political opponents would think about it in the event of disaster.

btilly
0 replies
3h32m

Given the many organizational failures that Boeing has had in recent years leading to safety problems (cough Dreamliner cough), I'm quite sure that Boeing's engineers have no way to put their feet down.

Afterwards one might come out as a whistleblower. But the fact that the last two whistleblowers wound up conveniently dead (no really, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boeing-whistleblower-di...) is likely to have a chilling effect on people's willingness to volunteer as whistleblowers.

GMoromisato
0 replies
3h23m

Except in this case, according to Steve Stich, it is NASA engineers vs. Boeing engineers. And the Boeing engineers are the ones who are "closer to the hardware", while the NASA engineers are just overseeing it.

I have no idea who is right in this case. And even if the crew comes down on Starliner successfully, it doesn't mean that it was the right call. Maybe they just got lucky.

My sense from the call is that, if NASA engineers insist on a Dragon return, NASA management will support them.

rob74
3 replies
11h46m

Even if Boeing thinks that the chance of a catastrophic failure is infinitesimally small, they probably still can't ignore what a failure would mean for their already bad reputation. So returning the capsule without a crew is probably the safer option overall: if it's ok, it can still be certified; in the unlikely chance of a failure, NASA and Boeing can at least say that they were cautious and didn't succumb to the same wishful thinking that led to the Columbia disaster - and the damage for Boeing in the public opinion would be far smaller than if human lives were lost.

cubefox
1 replies
11h19m

You are ignoring the probabilities though. Risk is probability*potential damage amount, so the lower the probability of damage, the lower the risk. This can result in a low risk even if the potential amount of potential damage is high (when the probability is sufficiently small).

HPsquared
0 replies
9h38m

All predictions have a margin of error. Both "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns". Given they don't really understand the cause, we're nearer the "unknown unknowns" area.

Symmetry
0 replies
2h5m

It's better to analyze this in terms of the incentive of the particular project managers at Boeing making this decision, since Boeing itself isn't a person making decisions. They might rationally conclude that it might go well and get them promoted but if it goes badly the worst they're looking at is early retirement.

mattashii
2 replies
10h32m

A redo of this mission would cost Boeing half a billion dollars, easy.

I imagine so indeed, not in the least because all Atlas V launch vehicles are already assigned to missions. The booster for another non-operational flight would thus have to come from either their operational missions, or they'd have to pay someone else to give up their scheduled Atlas V payload. If they fail to buy someone else's Atlas V, they'd have to integrate Starliner onto a new (i.e. non-Atlas V) human-rated launch vehicle, or they would fail to deliver the contracted 6 operational missions.

philipwhiuk
0 replies
7h35m

It's doubtful they actually get awarded 6 missions before the ISS is de-orbited at the present rate.

dotnet00
1 replies
5h7m

I'm fairly certain that sources from NASA have said the opposite regarding scrutiny.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/science/boeing-starliner-...

As it turns out, the official that admitted this was the same Steve Stich.

Dragon was held to a higher standard, they were the newcomers and the corrupt snakes in Congress were looking for any excuse to justify canceling commercial crew and just giving Boeing a blank check again.

GMoromisato
0 replies
3h41m

For development, you're right. I think NASA considered Boeing a known quantity and trusted them to develop Starliner, while they scrutinized SpaceX because they were worried that they were too cavalier.

But I meant a higher standard for how much risk NASA is willing to take in this instance. If something had gone wrong with Dragon Demo-2, there was no other way to bring down the astronauts. They would have accepted relatively high risk because they had no choice.

But with Starliner, because they have Dragon, they don't need to accept that risk. The risk NASA will tolerate is lower now, because they have an alternative. That's what I meant by a higher standard.

naasking
0 replies
7h9m

Boeing has burned enough of its reputation at this point that I wouldn't trust their assessment one bit. Bringing back Starliner without the crew seems like a no-brainer, and is the only way to restore some of Boeing's credibility.

So many weeks of anti-Musk cope on Twitter about this issue. People really can't think clearly even about factual issues anymore.

glzone1
0 replies
2h54m

Finally a good summary.

I also picked up on the potential to at least payout Boeing if starliner comes down in good order (which seemed likely). I think that solves Boeings issue and would make them relax on forcing crew.

The problem here is they have a seemingly somewhat safer option going up and down regularly. That is making taking risk MUCH much harder because the downside risk (2 crew trapped in space potentially for a long and slow death) is pretty disastrous especially if a safer option was sitting right there and it turns out the decision to send them down was contract driven.

Given the history of thruster issues that go way back (and keep on repeating despite "fixes") I feel like they'll collect about as much data sending starliner back uncrewed, and then they'll need to be doing fixes for things like the helium issues etc that are compounding the risks. Be great if they could do ONE uncrewed flight more trouble free before putting astro's back on, but their solution is a more expensive with longer lead times than crew dragon (the entire service module is dumped on every launch I think, the rocket is also totally dumped etc)

elif
0 replies
6h15m

As a mountaineer, you play with this dichotomy safe/not-safe continuously and simultaneously.. but there comes a point sometimes where close calls add up the stammering indecision enters in, and at that point, in my opinion, you have already been defeated by the mountain. The indecision itself will consume too much of your energy and attention to perform the task even at a risk you could normally tolerate. Your judgement is too compromised to trust, and hubris and self-promising gets people killed.

cameldrv
0 replies
1h18m

I think it’s very unlikely that Starliner will ever fly again, regardless of the ultimate outcome of this mission. In its three flights, Starliner has had so many serious problems, it’s obvious that it hasn’t been sufficiently engineered. Why take the risk when there’s an alternative that has been essentially trouble free?

adolph
0 replies
5h42m

4. In some ways, Starliner is being held to a higher standard than Dragon Crew-2.

Wat? Have any Dragon missions encountered the number and severity of issues experienced by Starliner?

Maybe they have and are not public knowledge because NASA is less than transparency about its safety predictions and findings. But until the same confidence sapping mission performance is established it is not honest to say that Starliner is held to a higher standard.

ReptileMan
0 replies
7h19m

And since the contract is fixed-price, this would just add to Boeing's losses. So I expect they will certify Starliner even if it comes down without a crew.

Yet another Boeing vehicle to avoid ...

HenryBemis
0 replies
9h1m

So I expect they will certify Starliner even if it comes down without a crew.

Considering the 'optics' of this, I imagine they will/should certify Starliner not with or without a crew, and at least not after 'enough' time has passed for any audit to be meaningful and for Boeing to prove that they are getting things right. Imagine 'ok-ing' the Starliner, and on the very next mission, the same (or different) critical error happens. Then I bid the NASA folks who ok-ed the Starliner a good start on their next jobs.

If there is one profession with zero tolerance for errors it's the 'space-stuff' because 1) good luck repairing things in space, 2) "in space no one can hear you scream" (profanities because you ended up staying x10 or x100 the time planned)(and I do understand that capacity planning, food, toilets, etc. etc. have been calculated to ensure that they won't be running out of food, toilet paper, etc.)

It would be fun to have a Season 3 of Space Force, and this time instead of Malkovich yelling at Microsoft, to be yelling at Boeing!

mtalantikite
67 replies
22h27m

Imagine going to space for what you think is 8 days and Boeing messes up so bad you get stuck there for like 8 months instead. Maybe really cool, but maybe a nightmare?

TheCondor
39 replies
21h41m

They are astronauts... There is some amount of expectation that the rocket will blow up before they get in to space. Nobody wants it, but they are the best of us and they are courageous as heck.

To be completely honest, the news cycle this summer has been so wild; I kind of forgot they were up there until today. That is something that it seems like they might not have trained the astronauts for, and that's really scary. That and there might be some sort of business politics involved in the plan to get home.

We're all sort of engineers here, given the choice, suppose Boeing thought they could land you next week or you would wait until 2025 and ride a Dragon down. Which would you pick?

privatebecause
25 replies
21h0m

they are the best of us

This gets said a lot, so I'll bite. Are they really? Many are just people able to go through the years of soul crushing things like being in the military. There are some straight up scientists on board, sure, I'll give that to them. But a lot are science people that are also fine doing things like flying bombing missions over the middle east. Killing tons of people isn't really a thing I respect.

rurp
7 replies
20h36m

It's awfully uncharitable to assume that someone is a bad person just from serving in the military. The military has done some reprehensible things at times, but it has also done a lot of good and the unfortunate reality is that in the world as it currently exists a strong military is a requirement for a free society.

I don't agree with the fetishizing of the service that goes on in some circles, but taking the opposite extreme is not any better. People should be judged on their individual actions.

dTal
6 replies
19h5m

I don't think they said they were "bad people". But it's a fair objection that anyone who is content to sign away their personal autonomy to a violent organization may not represent "the best" of us, in some philosophically meaningful sense. Insofar that it's true that "a strong military is a requirement for a free society", it's because people like that exist.

shiroiushi
2 replies
18h11m

Insofar that it's true that "a strong military is a requirement for a free society", it's because people like that exist.

Yes, but there's no way to change that; it's human nature. Without a military, other countries with strong militaries will happily impose themselves on you: Nazi Germany, Russia/SU, etc. History is full of accounts of what happens when people don't have enough military power to resist invasion by a country of evildoers with their own powerful military.

Similarly, police frequently suck, but the alternative is even worse. There's no shortage of people who would be happy to ignore laws and prey on others if they didn't have to worry about police enforcement.

mtalantikite
0 replies
2h43m

Yes, but there's no way to change that; it's human nature.

I think this is a dangerous idea, that humans are just violent and abusive by nature and it's impossible to change. It's something that is learned and taught and passed down, like anything else, which means it can be changed. I'll just quote Thay because he does it so well:

"We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come." Thich Nhat Hanh from Living Buddha, Living Christ

Dalewyn
0 replies
2h0m

History is full of accounts of what happens

We don't even need to look back, Ukraine can tell us all about that today.

Iulioh
2 replies
12h53m

anyone who is content to sign away their personal autonomy to a violent organization

Honestly non-physical violence is sometimes overlooked.

Economic decisions cause way more violence is mpre subtle ways.

A new policy in banking or from insurance companies can lead to more deaths than a what an entire branch of the military.

Hell, i think high decisions from Google can cause deaths in prioritizing certain arguments over others.

So i don't think that just begin a part of the system makes you bad, making the decisions does.

dTal
1 replies
7h2m

Right, we all have a responsibility to act ethically in all parts of our lives. Refuse to work for organizations that do unethical things; if you are in an organization, refuse to do unethical things even if it gets you fired. Do not facilitate the doing of unethical things in any way.

The difference with the military is you can be put in prison for behaving this way.

Iulioh
0 replies
2h52m

From the other side of the argument

>Refuse to work for organizations that do unethical things

Is a easy way to ensure that said organizzation won't ever change.

WalterBright
7 replies
12h21m

The most effective way to avoid fighting is to have military superiority. Bullies pick on the weak, not the powerful.

mtalantikite
3 replies
2h53m

I'm not sure, aren't the most powerful typically bullies? The UK had probably the strongest Navy in the world for a long while and used it to colonize and extract wealth from a large part of the world. There's a controversial calculation that they took about $45 trillion from south asian alone, but even if it was only a fraction of that it's certainly an example of the powerful bullying the "weak".

History is littered with these examples. We're seeing it happen in Israel/Palestine as we speak. It's not like the US spent all our money on the military and became a chill, benevolent international partner.

WalterBright
2 replies
1h54m

US power has (so far) prevented WW3. Biden's weakness in Afghanistan emboldened Putin to attack the Ukraine.

peterfirefly
1 replies
32m

Those two things don't seem connected at all. Blame Germany for emboldening Putin. Russia accumulated a huge war chest due to energy exports, mostly to the rest of Europe. A large part of that was gas for Germany. That could have been avoided with some timely nuclear power. It also made Germany (and other parts of Europe) quite vulnerable because gas pipelines are hard to replace (and LNG is expensive).

Remember that the war started in 2014, not 2022.

WalterBright
0 replies
1m

I don't think it was a coincidence that the massive invasion of Ukraine was just a few months from the feckless abandonment of Afghanistan.

I know that there were relatively minor attacks on Ukraine before.

davedx
1 replies
6h51m

It really depends on who is in charge. I'm reading Kissinger's "On China" at the moment, and Mao, who led the most populous country on Earth for a significant time, was way more motivated by ideology and the notion that "struggle" was the highest priority, than he was by the comparative military strength of who China engaged in wars with.

That being said, he wasn't single minded either (e.g. he also mostly followed Chinese principles of not being overly interventionist, unlike the US), and his views did seem to gradually change over time.

But he also said things like: "We have a very large territory and a big population. Atomic bombs could not kill all of us."

Repeatedly.

===

Nazi Germany and Japan weren't deterred at all by military strength either, I don't think? Again ideology overrode every other consideration with WW2? So I'm not sure if "deterrence" really helps prevent major conflicts at all...

WalterBright
0 replies
1h56m

Nazi Germany and Japan weren't deterred at all by military strength either

Oh, yes they were! Hitler thought the Soviet Army was rotten from top to bottom, thought the British were weak and could be defeated by the Luftwaffe, and thought the US would never fight.

He was right on all three counts, but the Soviets, British, and the US turned themselves into powerhouses.

The Japanese were afraid of the US, and thought they could get the US to stay on the sidelines by knockout out the carriers in Pearl. How wrong they were.

specialist
0 replies
5h32m

"If you desire peace, prepare for war."

tomcam
4 replies
20h35m

Just to ensure both of us get severely downvoted and not just you, I have a parallel way of looking at it. Most people appear to be more... let's say, optimistic than I am. I tend to take a very conservative engineer or economist way of assessing the risks.

About 3% of American astronauts have died in space, and about 4.5% have died during missions (which includes takeoffs).

"Only" 15% of smokers get lung cancer.

These numbers don't work for me. Yet plenty of smart people are willing to take those odds. I can only conclude that if people smarter than I am are good to go with those stats, then it means they have some kind of built-in optimism that I lack.

Your notion of the military being "soul crushing" is not shared by all people in the military. Starting around the sergeant level there are tons of very interesting problems to solve. Some find it super fulfilling, and certainly many dudes who have been in combat felt it was the only time in their experience to feel really alive.

So for different reasons I come to the same conclusion as you. They aren't really heroes, just people doing something they find compelling. And they measure risk and reward very differently from me.

Killing tons of people isn't really a thing I respect.

Well, context matters, doesn't it? Sometimes violence is required to solve problems. The US had to kill 700,000 of its own to eliminate slavery. And while Europe lost tens of millions, the US sacrificed over 400,000 helping them out in WWII. Once the Germans attacked Poland and the Japanese attacked us, how would you have solve these problems without violence? Ask Neville Chamberlain how that worked out.

shiroiushi
1 replies
18h9m

Once the Germans attacked Poland and the Japanese attacked us, how would you have solve these problems without violence? Ask Neville Chamberlain how that worked out.

To be fair to Neville, there's an argument that he did the best he could, and was really just buying time because the UK was in no position to go to war with Germany at that point in time.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
12h24m

was really just buying time because the UK was in no position to go to war with Germany at that point in time

In part because it didn't bother arming. A decision Berlin likely took note of.

dTal
1 replies
18h58m

Thing is, once you're in the military, you don't get to choose who to kill. You are not permitted to say "I do not think violence is required to solve this particular problem". You are not afforded the privilege of conscience. You are required to switch that part of your brain off.

shiroiushi
0 replies
18h8m

Yes, because a military would not be effective at all if every soldier got to question every tactical or strategic decision. That's why it's your job as a citizen to pick better leaders, because those leaders are in charge of the military.

exe34
2 replies
12h41m

if you hate the military that much, why do you make use of the benefits? why not move to the other side and enjoy real freedom?

alamortsubite
1 replies
7h2m

Would that put them in a better or worse position to improve what they see as shortcomings of the military? Where does the instinct to suggest the cowardly approach of running away from a problem come from?

exe34
0 replies
6h37m

it's coming from the hypocrisy of saying they want the scientists working on something else, and expect to magically keep the same freedoms.

runlevel1
0 replies
17h41m

Well, maybe not the one who drove across the country in a diaper to assault her ex-boyfriend's lover.

WalterBright
6 replies
12h25m

There is some amount of expectation that the rocket will blow up before they get in to space. Nobody wants it, but they are the best of us and they are courageous as heck.

The B-17 aircrews in WW2 knew they had only a 20% chance of surviving their mission count intact. (not killed, crippled, or POW'd)

Neil Armstrong figured he only had a 50% chance of surviving Apollo 11. Personally, I think he was optimistic.

trte9343r4
3 replies
11h51m

Like B-17 crew could refuse orders. That is not how draft works! It was slavery!

WalterBright
2 replies
11h35m

B-17 crews were all volunteers.

trte9343r4
1 replies
10h24m

None of them were drafted? In general army only 29% soldiers were volunteers. I find it hard to believe they all volunteered.

And I found a few cases where instructors were assigned to B-17 as a punishment.

WalterBright
0 replies
10h21m

They all joined the Army Air Corps as volunteers.

yakz
1 replies
4h19m

Not only that, but thousands (>10k) of WW2 aviators died in training before deployment.

WalterBright
0 replies
1h52m

Those airplanes were not safe. They were designed for maximum performance, not safety.

htrp
3 replies
21h28m

I think most astronauts and wannabe astronauts would prefer as much time in space as they could get.

nullfield
2 replies
21h13m

I admit I didn’t think of this, but… without another science mission or something, what do they do up there?

This said, yeah, I wouldn’t want to come back on Boeing hardware with Dragon available.

bityard
0 replies
25m

I don't follow Space Stuff as much as I'd like to, but one impression that I have always had is that there is _never_ a lack of stuff for astronauts to do up there. An astronaut's time and resources are just too damn expensive to have them up there just hanging out. Outside of their fairly limited personal leisure time, they have a strict down-to-the-minute schedule handed down to them by mission planners that they must follow if they want to keep their jobs past the next landing. Including when to sleep and when to eat.

(Of course, I assume the astronauts are allowed to request a change to their schedule if it's for a good reason.)

Common tasks include running tests and maintenance on the station itself and monitoring/performing various science experiments. Perhaps doing a few NASA PR bits, media interviews and short chats with school children over the radio.

I once read an article that said the vast majority of the actual work NASA does is "contingency" work that is never actually ends up being used. The problem is that while a mission is under development (or even well underway), you don't always know how things are going to shake out. So you hedge your bets by doing as much preparation and exploration of alternatives as you can, and try to pick the right one at the right time, or as the situation evolves.

I guarantee there are entire teams on the ground working _right this second_ on a draft schedule for keeping the two "extra" astronauts gainfully contributing to ISS activities, even though it's not certain that they will be there.

TheCondor
0 replies
21h7m

According to the audio: https://www.youtube.com/live/DYPL6bx87yM they are helping with standard ISS tasks, like operational maintenance and it is greatly appreciated.

throwaway2037
0 replies
11h16m

The Dragon, obvs! Then, I get more time in space, and I get to try both capsules -- Boeing on the way up, and SpaceX on the way down.

e_y_
0 replies
11h15m

But also that willingness to face the risks goes with the expectation that the people on the ground did everything they could to minimize the risks. If that trust is broken, because someone cut corners to save on costs and schedule, it's less likely that astronauts would want to sign up for such a job in the future.

gojomo
9 replies
21h29m

Even if up for 8 months – and returning to a US with a different President, perhaps even a different party-of-the-President, they'll not match the experience of Sergei Krikalev – who traveled to the space station Mir for the USSR, & was for a while stuck there when the USSR dissolved, only returning 311 days later:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Krikalev

He later became the 1st cosmonaut to fly on the US Space Shuttle:

https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/p...

justinclift
3 replies
18h34m

they'll not match the experience of Sergei Krikalev

Bear in mind that your statement is very "Hold my beer..." and we're talking about Boeing here. ;)

So it's possible, though unlikely, some chain of events could occur so the Starliner astronauts beat Sergei Krikalev's record.

simiones
1 replies
9h14m

Still very unlikely that they'd come back to a, say, Independent Republic of Florida instead of the USA they left from, but hey, it's been a crazy couple of years.

TheOtherHobbes
0 replies
7h34m

If they wait for a few more years it's going to be the Floridian Archipelago.

moomin
0 replies
9h4m

Given Boeing's track record, it's possible they'll return to be greeted by apes wearing suits.

spoonfeeder006
1 replies
20h30m

That would be an absolute dream for me

quakeguy
0 replies
20h0m

May i ask why?

schneehertz
1 replies
11h52m

What a terrible comparison; I believe that the current state of America has not yet fallen to the level it was at before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

apexalpha
0 replies
11h41m

I think he was comparing the experience by the astronauts,not the state of the countries.

akira2501
0 replies
8h28m

He later became the 1st cosmonaut to fly on the US Space Shuttle:

Part of the reason NASA selected him is because he worked on the Soviet Buran project for a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

sschueller
7 replies
12h29m

I would be mostly concerned about the bone loss and health implications some of which can't be reversed.

JumpCrisscross
6 replies
12h25m

would be mostly concerned about the bone loss and health implications some of which can't be reversed

Eight months is well within studied ranges for astronauts.

JonChesterfield
5 replies
10h42m

Studied and found to be non-damaging, or just studied and sucks to be them?

ChocolateGod
3 replies
6h55m

On the other hand, astronauts' telomeres lengthen during spaceflight

I wonder if this is partially the reason (along with great healthcare benefits) why so many Apollo astronauts have live passed the average life expectancy in the US.

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
4h38m

why so many Apollo astronauts have live passed the average life expectancy in the US

The effect reverses within days of return to Earth. The reason astronauts live longer is their physical training more than compensates for the damage done to their bodies in space.

radicaldreamer
0 replies
9m

Besides muscle atrophy, doesn’t spaceflight reduce damage done to bodies?

peterfirefly
0 replies
28m

Astronauts should not be compared with normal people. They should be compared with other exceptional people. The Apollo astronauts were quite intelligent (which correlates nicely with lifespan and health) and accomplished... and selected to be healthier than most.

Their physical training as astronauts was likely irrelevant to their lifespan.

kotaKat
3 replies
21h52m

And not to forget, they traveled up without their personal clothing or handpicked hygiene items. They had to give those up for parts to repair the toilet on the ISS and are using the station's stocked contingency supplies.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2024/0...

lysace
2 replies
21h47m

There's no unmanned supply mission planned before they get to go home?

tagami
0 replies
21h19m

NG-21 just arrived with extra supplies for the extended crew stay. There is a domino effect though. Other payload must be removed to add additional mass. My company has two missions scheduled for SpX-31 - currently on the calendar for 24 SEP - but NYT is reporting crew dragon is moving from 18 AUG to this date.

The schedule is always fluid with rocket launches. Awaiting confirmation.

HarHarVeryFunny
0 replies
21h26m

There's one just went up a day or two ago. According to Google they go every couple of months.

iancmceachern
1 replies
22h0m

Reminds me if Gilligan's Island

...a three hour tour...

m463
0 replies
21h37m

I remember the episode where a space capsule flew over the island. They wrote SOS in big letters, but somehow Gilligan managed to mess things up and it became SOL. Of course one of the astronauts was named Sol and saw his name on the island as a tribute...

thedman9052
0 replies
21h48m

Astronauts historically work closely with the people that build their spacecraft. I wonder how much they knew going in and how confident they really were. They decided to go through with the mission, but there was surely an immense amount of pressure on them to do so. Can you imagine the political firestorm if one of them refused? It would ground them for sure.

tamimio
0 replies
18h43m

The same thing can happen to any traveler. Sometimes you plan to stay for a few months and end up staying for 30 years. So, as cliché as it sounds, enjoy the journey, not the destination!

enraged_camel
0 replies
21h58m

Going out on a limb here but astronaut training involves being prepared (physically, mentally and otherwise) for all eventualities, including delays like this probably.

Sucks for their families though.

trebligdivad
46 replies
21h58m

Listen to the actual conference: https://www.youtube.com/live/DYPL6bx87yM?si=W5UzfyiYzPX3KgGr

IMHO summarising it like the title is a little unfair; yes they're making provision for use of Dragon; but they haven't made any decision yet. The thing that seems to have confused them is that all the Starliner thrusters are working in their tests - given their idea of some teflon deformation somewhere, I think they thought they'd still be problematic, which is making them wonder if the teflon thing is the full story?

HarHarVeryFunny
37 replies
21h30m

It seems it'd be a massive reputational risk to NASA to bring them back on Starliner, just in case anything does go wrong. Given all the deliberations, NASA is going to be seen as at least 50% to blame if they make the wrong decision.

mannykannot
36 replies
21h23m

Everyone closely involved with making the decision will be well aware that the subsequent inquiry, and quite a bit of the public's reaction, will be personally brutal if they opt for Starliner and it fails catastrophically, no matter how small the odds seemed at the time.

WalterBright
34 replies
12h30m

Being unable to deal with risk means the end of the space program.

pfdietz
15 replies
7h19m

If the space program is not willing to kill some astronauts, there shouldn't be a space program.

From a purely economic point of view, the cost of killing an astronaut is small compared to the cost of these missions. The statistical value of a human life is around $12 M. Astronauts may be a bit more expensive, due to cost of training, but not enormously so.

Making space flight much cheaper will shift the economics, making safety relatively more important. It will also enable that safety by enabling many more launches to reduce risks.

People anguish over the 14 astronauts killed in the Shuttle, but the economic value destroyed by that program was in the end a much greater loss.

93po
4 replies
6h30m

this is a really sad and disappointing perspective for someone to have. if you are putting people's lives at risk for the sake of economic value when they have trusted you with their lives then you don't deserve that trust.

pfdietz
2 replies
6h24m

The money spent on making astronauts safer could save more lives if spent elsewhere. That's how the statistical value of a life is set: it's the marginal cost of saving a (age adjusted) life used to justify government actions, say in worker safety, pollution control, road improvements, medical spending, etc.

Why do you think astronauts are so much more important than the common persons saved by these other efforts? Why do you advocate spending patterns that increase the body count for a given expenditure?

michaelt
1 replies
4h14m

We all know that society applies almost arbitrary values to all these things.

42,000 road deaths annually? Meh. 3,000 people die in the terror attacks of 9/11? Multi-trillion-dollar, 20 year war.

Politicians only fund NASA manned launches because the average voter thinks it's kinda cool and maybe it inspires some kids to work hard at school. Too many high profile, fear-inducing deaths and politicians are liable to decide the money spent on NASA could be better spent elsewhere.

pfdietz
0 replies
20m

Yes, the point I'm working toward is the manned space program is not worth the money spent on it. The willingness to suspend the thing for years when a few astronauts die is a tell. If what they were doing was actually important this would not be allowed to happen.

WalterBright
0 replies
1h49m

if you are putting people's lives at risk for the sake of economic value when they have trusted you with their lives then you don't deserve that trust.

That happens all the time. If you drive your car to work, you are putting your lives and those of others at risk for economic value. There's no way around it.

gus_massa
3 replies
5h32m

Most of the science results from the space program are from proves. The experiments that the astronaut run in space are fully automated, because they are not experts in all topics, so they get a box that they have to plug, turn on and off later. The value of astronauts is to get some data about the human body in space and mostly to get support from the public. (It's almost like pilots in F1. Nobody would go to see a robot version of F1.)

MadnessASAP
2 replies
4h30m

I would very much pay to see F1 cars being controlled by computers beyond the limits of humans. Especially if they removed many of the limitations intended to keep the drivers safe.

radicaldreamer
0 replies
18m

You need to keep the audience safe as well! Most of the people who have died in motorsport are spectators.

gus_massa
0 replies
20m

Mee too! But I think we will be the only two spectators in the stands.

dotnet00
3 replies
5h2m

There's a massive difference between astronauts dying in the process of testing something innovative and risky that pushes the envelope, and astronauts dying because a company has let its engineering deteriorate.

In the latter case, we might as well just shoot those astronauts instead, it'd give about the same meaning to their deaths.

pfdietz
2 replies
4h42m

If what they are doing is not enough to give meaning to their deaths, then to a much greater extent it's not enough to give meaning to the very large amount of money being spent on the mission.

dotnet00
1 replies
4h34m

That makes no sense. The meaning of the very large amount of money being spent on the mission is of accomplishing the mission.

Starliner is doing nothing innovative, and dying with it would not be accomplishing the mission or adding anything new towards accomplishing it past this point (that is, all the testing past this point can be done without putting people onboard, with just the comparatively small cost of a software swap), there is no meaning to dying on it.

You might as well be arguing that SpaceX should put crew on IFT-5.

pfdietz
0 replies
23m

So, the meaning of the deaths is the accomplishment of the mission. Why does the mission give meaning to money, but not to the deaths? Meaning is meaning.

Starliner may indeed not be worth deaths involved in its testing, but that would be because Starliner would not be worthwhile as a program at all.

pfdietz
0 replies
5h17m

"Not enormously so". In particular, it doesn't counter the argument I was making. For the Shuttle, for example, the value of the astronaut lives, even including $15 M in training costs, was an order of magnitude less than the cost of the orbiter itself.

HarHarVeryFunny
5 replies
3h39m

Sure, it's inherently risky, so managing that risk becomes key to success.

The thing here is that NASA has a choice.

1) Use Starliner with it's dodgy development history, no track record of reliability, and with the problems experienced with this specific unit.

2) Use Dragon, tried and tested, with an excellent history of reliability

This should be a no-brainer.

If Starliner can't safely autonomously undock at the moment (and anyways needs a month for software reload/verification apparently - not sure why verification takes so long), then leave it there until there's a solution to do it safely. In the meantime the ISS has 6 docking ports, currently all in use with 3 supply vessels and 3 crew (Starliner+Dragon+Soyuz), so presumably there is some flexibility there.

WalterBright
2 replies
1h51m

Having competitors trying to out do each other is good for the space program. Having only one solution available leads to problems as well.

peterfirefly
0 replies
44m

But Boeing isn't trying to "out do" SpaceX -- except when it comes to political connections.

Maybe Dream Chaser will be that competitor. We'll see.

HarHarVeryFunny
0 replies
1h6m

Sure, and NASA are also nurturing Blue Origin who may be a good option in the future.

I don't think anyone looks bad here if NASA go with Dragon and Starliner flies home autonomously and without incident. It makes Boeing look good, and everyone in the room look like adults. OTOH given the poor Boeing performance to date, killing a crew would probably take them out of the NASA program for a very long time, if not forever, and even having a non-fatal failure on way back would make the judgement of both Boeing and NASA look very poor.

richardwhiuk
1 replies
1h48m

They have to undock either Dragon (Crew 8) or Starliner to dock the next Dragon (Crew 9).

HarHarVeryFunny
0 replies
1h2m

What about the port currently used by the Northrup Grumman supply ship - is that not compatible with Dragon ? Is there no adaptor to make the Russian Soyuz/Progress ports usable by Dragon ?

highwaylights
4 replies
11h21m

Losing public support means the end of the space program too. Especially in an election year.

Yeul
3 replies
6h52m

How many astronauts died in the Apollo era? Nobody wants a Chinese moon base. That's worth a few lives.

chasd00
0 replies
39m

The Apolla era was a completely different animal. I don't think cars at seat belts in those days, society was much more accepting of danger. Also, nuclear annihilation was very real and anything required to beat the Soviet Union was on the table. That level of existential crisis and acceptance of danger in the public mind doesn't exist today.

asmor
0 replies
6h28m

Three. None in space.

93po
0 replies
6h29m

I want a chinese moon base

colordrops
4 replies
12h10m

There's risk and then there's unnecessary risk.

BSDobelix
2 replies
8h30m

You could argue that landing on the Moon and even Mars is an unnecessary risk, or human spaceflight as a whole.

The whole moon programme and the space shuttle were extremely high risk by today's standards, but the moon programme was to prove that the US could beat the USSR, and the space shuttle was to transport spy satellites and build the ISS.

But Starliner should really be nearly zero risk with that small goal of docking and drop back home.

oefrha
1 replies
7h41m

Comparing brand new challenges to something that’s been done routinely a hundred times already is rather pointless.

BSDobelix
0 replies
7h31m

Docking to the ISS and drop home was done ~hundred times already, we compare Starliner with Soyuz in that mission no?

WalterBright
0 replies
11h24m

The difference between the two is always a matter of someone's opinion.

ta1243
0 replies
10h38m

You have two choices, one has a risk of 15 units, one has a risk of 3 units.

The outcome is the same.

You go for the risk of 3 units.

As Kirk says, "risk is our business". Doesn't mean you don't need to minimise the risk to achieve the goal. The goal here is

1) Return the crew

2) Return the capsule and gather more data

If those goals can be achieved with less by bringing the crew back on dragon, then that's a sensible move.

mannykannot
0 replies
7h25m

Choosing the Dragon capsule option in this case would be neither risk-free nor mean the end of a space program, though it might lead to significant changes (quite possibly for the better) to NASA's current version.

hinkley
0 replies
2h34m

They have plenty of experience with how Congress treats them when they kill astronauts.

Laremere
4 replies
11h39m

Interesting tidbit: Talking about the upcoming Crew Dragon flight being moved around: "We will let SpaceX use our first stage booster, they'll go fly a starlink flight, ahead of our flight to get a little shakedown of that booster. It had some moisture intrusion and we want to go ahead and get that booster flown. And so there's a win win there - flying our booster on a starlink flight before our crew flight."

The complete 180 here is great to see. For the crewed demo flight of Crew Dragon, they used a brand new booster. It seems NASA didn't like the idea of flying on reused boosters, thinking they had an increased risk. Now they're liking the idea of a booster being flown an extra time.

chinathrow
1 replies
11h30m

Now they're liking the idea of a booster being flown an extra time.

"Flight proven"

selimthegrim
0 replies
4h33m

"Flight secured."

MPSimmons
1 replies
3h8m

I worked at SpaceX for almost 8 years, starting before we'd ever landed a Falcon, and I cannot tell you how good it feels, deeply in my soul, to have watched this turnaround. The culture we were fighting against early on was so entrenched. This is great.

indoordin0saur
0 replies
1h32m

Congrats to you guys. SpaceX has done incredible things.

ramraj07
0 replies
11h57m

Yeah this announcement sounds like the type of thing bad bosses do to look like their decisions till now were sound (they were not). Accepting star liner as a mistake will ask the question what NASA did anyway.

philipwhiuk
0 replies
7h33m

It's not unfair given the information provided in this conference that was new. The dialog on conferences has shifted such that the main piece of news is that they may fly home on the Dragon.

mannykannot
0 replies
21h27m

The title strikes me as an entirely fair characterization of your own summary of the situation.

jeffwask
30 replies
22h27m

I wonder if the astronauts are upset at being stuck or excited by the extra time in space they otherwise may have never got.

cryptonector
10 replies
21h45m

How would you feel if you were one of them?

I'd feel pretty upset. A few days in space is no big deal. Months in space is hard on the body, plus you're missing out on months of life on Earth -- maybe you're going to miss the birth of a child or grandchild, or a loved one's death and funeral, or some other big event. And are you getting paid while up there? Are there enough supplies? What if NASA and Boeing finally decide it's OK to return on Starliner, and as you know you basically must then, so now you're risking your life on a vehicle that you have much reason to think is not safe.

It'd be hard not to be hopping mad in private. I'd make the best of it, since there's no other choice, but I would not be happy about it.

TMWNN
2 replies
17h49m

How would you feel if you were one of them?

I'd feel pretty upset.

Agreed.

Yes, flying in space is cool. No, most people don't want to do this indefinitely. Astronauts retire all the time even when they are 100% guaranteed more flight time if they didn't retire; a whole bunch did that in the 1960s and 1970s (some, like Frank Borman, 100% guaranteed to walk on the moon), and more during the shuttle era.

It's one thing to have a mission extended by a day, as happened to the shuttle routinely because of bad weather at the landing site. Skylab 4's mission I believe got extended by 28 days, but that was a known possibility before launch. To have an eight-day mission be possibly extended to eight months is in no way shape or form OK.

teractiveodular
1 replies
15h59m

Would you prefer 8 months and a safe ride down on a Dragon, or 8 days and taking your chances on the Starliner?

Not a rhetorical question, since you can argue both sides of the case. Even floating around in space for 8 months is not risk free.

TMWNN
0 replies
14h45m

Even floating around in space for 8 months is not risk free.

Correct. That said, ISS's quarter century of operations is a pretty good track record. Starliner's so far is dismal.

The best solution is to bring Wilmore and Williams back sooner than February. If that means Boeing paying for a rescue Crew Dragon launch, so be it.

DiggyJohnson
2 replies
12h37m

Of course you’re getting paid?

gus_massa
1 replies
4h29m

Do they get a different salary when they are up?

DiggyJohnson
0 replies
49m

That would be interesting. Thankfully I don't know about federal employee compensation yet to be sure of the answer, but I'm on my way.

layer8
1 replies
21h35m

Presumably, equanimity is a selection criterion for astronauts.

cryptonector
0 replies
17h2m

There's always a limit to equanimity.

CommieBobDole
1 replies
21h19m

The counterpoint to this is these are people who have dedicated their lives to becoming astronauts. They want to go to space and they want to do things in space, and they have sacrificed a lot of the comforts of a normal life to reach that goal. I suspect most astronauts feel like they don't spend enough time in space.

These are people who are driven by a passion to do the thing that they're (involuntarily) having to do more of than originally planned. I don't know if "how would you feel" is a good yardstick here; I would probably get sick of it pretty quick, but I'm not the kind of person who would make a good astronaut.

HPsquared
0 replies
9h43m

Also they get to be all heroic if the equipment doesn't work properly. It makes an (already interesting) trip more interesting and memorable.

deadbabe
7 replies
21h51m

Their bodies will wither. They will be bathed in radiation. You can only watch Earth go by so many times before it gets mundane.

ceejayoz
6 replies
21h38m

People have stayed longer, and apparently managed to enjoy it.

HarHarVeryFunny
5 replies
21h15m

Enjoy it, or endure it?!

It must get old after a month or so (or less), and long term effects beat your body up pretty badly.

ceejayoz
4 replies
21h0m

Enjoy it, or endure it?!

If you're genuinely interested, PBS and Apple+ have the documentary series "A Year In Space", which details Scott Kelly's experiences.

As with most other things in life, it seems to be a mix of excitement, fun, awe, tedium, homesickness, etc. Missed some stuff from Earth; misses being in space for some reasons now.

We continue to study the impact versus his identical twin. Some impacts, but the man isn't exactly "withered".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kononenko apparently liked it enough to go back five times, for almost three years in space so far.

HarHarVeryFunny
2 replies
20h47m

I wonder if any astronaut is ever going to say "no" if offered/asked to go back to space, regardless of past experiences? It's a massive privilege, and they are all highly disciplined pros.

HarHarVeryFunny
0 replies
52m

Yes, I suppose - if you don't want to go then quit.

In the case of Oleg Kononenko (5 trips to space) that the parent mentioned, while one assumes he could quit if he wanted to, I doubt he keeps getting sent because he's the one begging hardest to go back ... more likely the Russians want to be able to claim space achievements, and "most time in space" is one they can at least achieve, as long as they have a place to send him.

HarHarVeryFunny
0 replies
20h51m

Yes, I've seen it - good documentary!

He certainly seems ok now, but wasn't in great shape when he first returned. Had quite a lot of pain from what I remember.

BatFastard
4 replies
22h20m

Do they have any assignments or tasks? Boredom is my version of hell.

bell-cot
1 replies
22h11m

By every account I've heard, keeping the ISS going is seriously laborious for its crew. And both astronauts have previously done regular ISS missions, to quickly get back up to speed.

kotaKat
0 replies
20h5m

If anything, the extra couple people on board is a great help for stationkeeping and workload division to help give everyone a break.

xeromal
0 replies
22h3m

I believe there's always a backlog of science experiments to perform.

jeffwask
0 replies
22h13m

I'd bet there's always some set of experiments queued up, maintenance, etc.

urda
1 replies
22h23m

I imagine it could be exciting, extra time in orbit a place so few humans have been.

But it's likely overshadowed by the concerns and fears building from the possible return trip.

wongarsu
0 replies
22h16m

I imagine they vastly prefer returning on a flight-proven Crew Dragon over being the first crew ever to return on Starliner. Especially with all the Starliner issues so far.

beAbU
1 replies
11h25m

Humans have a truly amazing ability to grow bored of any "new normal", no matter how exciting it may seem to outsiders.

ReptileMan
0 replies
6h54m

Defensive mechanism. You cannot be stressed all the time and remain sane.

_joel
1 replies
22h23m

I'd imagine they'd revel at the opportunity for more time, generally.

jeffwask
0 replies
22h13m

That's how I'd feel. Kinda like startup life it's a chance to maybe do something you otherwise wouldn't

Zealotux
23 replies
22h29m

Is this possibly the end for the Starliner project? I can't imagine Boeing saving face after that.

zarzavat
14 replies
11h54m

I suspect that NASA may want to keep Starliner around, given that SpaceX is owned by a man who seems to be getting ever more unhinged by the day and has a history of making highly questionable business decisions.

naasking
4 replies
7h7m

SpaceX is owned by a man who seems to be getting ever more unhinged by the day

How so? Surely you're not claiming that shitposting on Twitter/X is some kind of objective assessment of a person's mentality?

michaelt
2 replies
3h45m

Even if the tweets are just locker room talk

if the CEO of a business whose primary revenue source is money from advertisers

tells advertisers to fuck off

and when they do instead of apologising or rolling anything back, sues them over it

and if this is part of a pattern of unpredictable behaviour

covering everything from calling a cave rescue diver a paedophile

to accidentally buying a $44 billion company while trying to prank the SEC to make a point

some would say that is not the level of boring, levelheaded rationality you want

from the man who can decide whether your astronauts get home or not

naasking
1 replies
3h14m

and if this is part of a pattern of unpredictable behaviour

This is just re-asserting the opinion that he's unhinged rather than shitposting for entertainment. Nothing you've presented suggests anything "unhinged", and investors can decide for themselves if his "risky behaviour" warrants their money.

from the man who can decide whether your astronauts get home or not

If you seriously think Musk would decide to not assist, you're deluded. Not only would he not do this for personal ethical reasons and his interest in space exploration, he knows most of his staff would resign in protest, and that would also be the end of SpaceX's government contracts, and thus basically the end of SpaceX.

If he's truly unhinged as you claim, then you can expect that this will happen sometime soon. I won't hold my breath.

michaelt
0 replies
2h12m

> he knows most of his staff would resign in protest, and that would also be the end of SpaceX's government contracts, and thus basically the end of SpaceX.

I agree - it would be completely irrational.

I just think Musk does irrational things from time to time.

There's nothing wrong with that, it's his right as a private individual. I do irrational things myself sometimes.

But if I was at NASA in charge of manned space flight

and you gave me a choice of staking my crew's safety on Musk alone, or Musk but with Starliner as a backup option

I would keep the backup option around

kube-system
0 replies
4h44m

I agree in that his shitposting isn't indicative of any change. Musk has always been a wildcard. That's part of the reason how he's made it to the position he's in now to begin with.

hersko
3 replies
3h53m

has a history of making highly questionable business decisions.

I get people don't like Musk, fine. But pretending that he has a history of making bad business decisions is ludicrous. He is by far the most successful business man alive (and maybe in history). This is just a fact. You can point out plenty of his faults, but his business acumen is clearly not one of them.

Just as an example: I'm old enough to remember when everyone said Twitter was going to completely break in a week after he fired >50% of the engineers to cut costs. How long ago was that? Also, whether you like the changes or not, there seems to be far more productivity and new features since Musk bought Twitter than the previous years with the old management and far larger headcount.

zarzavat
2 replies
2h57m

He’s currently suing his own customers for alleged antitrust violations after they stopped doing business with him because they judged that being associated with his platform was bad PR.

Twitter also triggered race riots in the UK and instead of being halfway apologetic about this, he has been spreading conspiracy theories on his personal account. This is likely to lead to a significantly more hostile legal environment in the future.

He is also being sued by the EU for changing blue checkmarks from a badge of verification to a paid feature, confusing users.

and that’s just this week!

indoordin0saur
0 replies
1h19m

He's suing an NGO-like agency (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) that includes a lot of advertisers who coordinated to prevent the purchasing of buying ad space on the platform. So not exactly his customers but someone that should have been representing the interests of potential customers.

People are getting thrown in prison for years for things like throwing a trash can at a police officer. Like thrown directly in prison: arrest->trial->sentencing->appeal->incarceration is all happening in the span of a few days and the UK is actually attempting to make it illegal to talk about on social media! This is in addition to giving actual rape and murder perpetrators slow-walked trials, house arrest or just non-investigations.

The EU lawsuit just seems weird. I'm not sure why they would care so much about that one. The checkmark change was highly publicized and I don't think it mattered to anyone but celebrities and attention-seeking figures anyways. Government officials and other critically important people/organizations still get a verification.

hersko
0 replies
2h24m

That's not why he is suing them. It is an anti trust suit where he is alleging illegal conspiracy.

The man runs 3 multibillion dollar businesses that are being sued all the time. I don't think any of these will have large or even noticeable impacts on the companies.

big-green-man
3 replies
10h12m

Hopefully that doesn't factor into their calculus at all. I'd like space programs to be run by practical people who value merit over noise, and I personally don't care if a space transport system is owned by Ronald McDonald as long as it works right. Boeing is a very respectable company or so I've heard. I'm sure their executives watch what they say in public and wear the proper in fashion business suits as expected. I would still rather hop on a spacex vehicle right about now. If you're right and they care about Musk owning Twitter and saying inappropriate shit out loud, I'd say that would reduce my trust in NASA.

mopenstein
1 replies
6h43m

If you disagree with someone's political opinion, obviously they aren't fit to do anything of constructive value.

wwtrv
0 replies
3h56m

Why? It would just seem silly not to take include the fact the CEO of the company you are relying on continuously behaves in an erratic and unpredictable manner (and is also trying to undermine democratic institutions but that's besides the point...) into your risk estimates.

Wytwwww
0 replies
9h7m

practical people who value merit over noise,

How wouldn't that be a part of a perfectly rational risk analysis though?

It's like saying (of course on a very different scale) that NASA should be buying rockets from Russian/Chinese/etc. companies/government as long as they offer a good price/quality ratio etc. Which would be an immensely stupid thing to do regardless of how good the actual rockets were.

Twitter and saying inappropriate shit out loud

Or possibly more importantly doing inappropriate shit both publicly and not.

In general companies that are purely driven by their management's desire to maximize profits/shareholder value/their bonuses are fairly predictable and can be expected to behave rationally under most circumstances. However you might not want to rely too much on company owned by someone (hard to tell which ones are correct so pick any):

- willing to burn billions to either to prove some bizarre point - makes impulsive decisions worth billions under the influence of drugs - is willing to spend large amounts of money to manipulate public opinion (and/or undermine democracy and the rule of law)

(at least long-term anyway...)

rangestransform
0 replies
4h41m

I hope the astronauts are completely intolerant of their lives being risked for political points

o23jro2j3
2 replies
21h30m

I think you're grossly underestimating how many bribes, er, excuse me, campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and wine and dines Boeing has done. They could kill everyone on board ISS and crash six more planes and the US government would continue to bank roll them for years to come.

JumpCrisscross
1 replies
21h10m

underestimating how many bribes, er, excuse me, campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and wine and dines Boeing has done

You’re spitballing. Starliner was pushed by NASA, not electeds. Boeing is currently in the shitter with the public and thus the Congress.

Even if you’re cynical beyond evidence, the hypothesis doesn’t hold: Boeing’s competitors are deep pocketed and connected too.

lostemptations5
0 replies
5h33m

"competitor" (-s) no?

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
19h29m

Is this possibly the end for the Starliner project?

No. Remember, these are fixed-price contracts. NASA will force Boeing to fix the problem on its own dime.

Which is fitting, as Starliner is the stupidest space programme in present existence.

shkkmo
0 replies
11h54m

Starliner is stupider than Artemis and SLS?

beAbU
0 replies
11h26m

More stupid than SLS?

mrpippy
0 replies
21h42m

After all this, even in the best case (Starliner returns successfully with Butch and Suni), it’s hard to see that NASA would consider it vetted and ready for an operational (non-test) flight.

They still haven’t figured out a root cause for the thruster failures, and they won’t be getting the faulty flight hardware back to examine it. Is Boeing willing to put substantial engineering time into fixing/re-designing the thrusters, and then flying another 2-person test flight? I guess we’ll find out soon…

Max-q
0 replies
22h6m

I would be willing to bet quite much on cancellation.

hodgesrm
19 replies
22h41m

Who is the alternative vendor for travel to low earth orbit after SpaceX? It is not going to be Boeing from the look of things.

psunavy03
4 replies
22h31m

Sierra Nevada?

FrameworkFred
1 replies
21h36m

Stuck Rocket IPA w/ mostly Apollo and Atlas hops, but a bit of a Cluster addition at flame out...and, this time, no Challenger or Columbia

psunavy03
0 replies
19h57m

Well played . . .

bell-cot
0 replies
22h23m

[Assuming that you're referring to Sierra Space and their https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser#Crewed_version]

Note that the Crew version still seems to be aspirational. And the base-model Cargo version isn't exactly flying in the fast lane, either - "[first] demonstration mission is planned for launch no earlier than 2025."

And note that it took SpaceX almost 10 years to go from Demo-1 of their Cargo Dragon to Demo-1 of their Crew Dragon.

__d
0 replies
20h36m

Sierra's Dream Chaser Cargo System variant was due to launch on the second Vulcan test flight this year, but it was recently announced that it wouldn't be ready for that. It's now vaguely scheduled for 2025.

The crew version of Dream Chaser is kinda on hold as they try to get the cargo version flying (they say they're still working on it, but I guess the cargo version is first priority): it'll take a bunch of work to get it completed and certified, but it should be less than starting from scratch.

Once flying, they've got a NASA contract to run 6 resupply missions to the ISS (assuming they can get it flying in time before ISS is deorbited), plus a single flight contract with the UN (!)

Both Dream Chaser and Starliner are proposed as crew transports for Blue Origin's Orbital Reef station.

__d
3 replies
20h2m

Boeing has a decision to make: keep investing in Starliner, or cut the program now, and avoid having to do a bunch of rework to fix it plus at least one more test flight (and possibly two?) on their own dime.

It's not really clear (to me) how likely either of those outcomes is right now.

IF they drop it, then I would expect NASA to run a new commercial crew program. They need redundancy, and they don't want to be running the development process themselves.

Dream Chaser Space System (their crewed variant) is almost certainly the best-placed candidate to win an award from that program: they have an almost-flying cargo variant that was originally designed to be human rated, and existing plans to complete the crewed variant.

SpaceX might get some money for Starship, although I would expect NASA to try to write the rules such that they're not eligible. While having two options from a single company is better than just one, a fully-independent option would be better.

Blue Origin has some experience with the New Shepard capsule, and is working on their Blue Moon lander: I expect that they would cobble together a proposal, and perhaps between their previous experience in losing bids due to over-pricing, and NASA's experience with Starliner's fixed-price failure, the price might end up somewhere in the middle?

Maybe Northrop-Grumman would propose a Cygnus-derived vehicle? It'd need a human-rated launcher -- Dream Chaser would likely be using Vulcan, and Falcon9 is a dependency on SpaceX. NG would probably like to use its own Antares 330 booster, but then they'd be running both a crew vehicle and a booster program which is a lot of money and risk.

It's not entirely implausible that someone buys Starliner from Boeing, and attempts to complete the development (if Boeing gives up). Blue Origin is possibly the most likely candidate? They have Jeff's cash mountain, and a kinda compatible "old space" culture -- if Boeing is willing to sell it at a reasonable price, it's possibly a cheap way to get 80% of the way there?

Given the results from this commercial crew round (a likely 50% success), funding two programs with the expectation of one success seems reasonable. Whether they are able to get commercial interest in a fixed-price award like last time is an open question, as is who might apply.

Interesting times.

skissane
2 replies
18h1m

Boeing has a decision to make: keep investing in Starliner, or cut the program now

They can't cut the program. They are contracted to NASA. If they try to bail out, they'll be breaching a major federal government contract, which could have serious negative consequences for their ability to win future federal contracts – not just NASA, but more importantly the Pentagon too.

If Boeing really wants out, the only plausible way is they convince NASA management to cancel the contract. That way Boeing can officially claim that they performed adequately, and the cancellation was due to NASA's own decision, not their own failures.

bpodgursky
1 replies
15h48m

If Boeing really wants out, the only plausible way is they convince NASA management to cancel the contract. That way Boeing can officially claim that they performed adequately, and the cancellation was due to NASA's own decision, not their own failures.

Alternatively they could convince a judge that NASA was being unreasonable by not certifying and completing this flight, if this goes to court, which many federal contracting squabbles do.

skissane
0 replies
14h6m

That would be a very high risk move - significant chance a federal judge says “I refuse to second guess NASA’s own engineers on astronaut safety”. In the unlikely event they prevail at the District Court level, I doubt it would be held up on appeal. And if they lose, their reputation will be even more in tatters than it already is.

mrpippy
2 replies
22h24m

If Boeing wants out after this debacle, maybe Blue Origin would be interested in buying the program/IP?

Starliner is launching on ULA rockets (Atlas today, Vulcan likely in the future) anyway, and BE is rumored to be purchasing them too.

thedman9052
1 replies
21h58m

ULA is one thing, they are highly successful and established. Starliner is a lemon. I think it would be better for them to develop a capsule based on their own New Shepard vehicle.

__d
0 replies
19h43m

I think it's mostly a question of how NASA assesses the vehicle: is it going to be an endless series of patches on a fundamentally flawed base? Or is it somewhere over 50% done, with some software cleanup, thruster fixes, and some decent QA and then good to go?

Rejigging New Shepard with appropriate docking, heat shielding, maneuvering thrusters, life support, power, cooling, etc, etc, etc, is a huge project. Certainly it's a head start, but I think it'd be a ground-up redesign with that as experience and maybe a starting point for beefed-up parts.

bpodgursky
2 replies
22h38m

At this rate SpaceX will have two certified manned launch vehicles (Crew Dragon, Starship) by the time any other providers have a functioning platform.

(yes it will be years before Starship is human-certified... but Starliner has already had MORE years)

wongarsu
0 replies
21h35m

And Starship is already putting in some work for the lunar lander variant of the Starship. Sure, launching humans from the moon has different requirements and contingency plans than launching them from earth, but having a lunar lander ready in ~2027 is going to make it a lot easier to then human-rate it for earth-based launches.

verzali
0 replies
11h13m

Starship won't work for the ISS, it is just too big and will create all sorts of control issues if it does dock.

thedman9052
1 replies
21h55m

Lockheed has Orion, they could modify it for Vulcan or Falcon. Overkill for LEO but at least it's functional. Realistically NASA will have to go through another round of requests for proposal, though I don't know how much interest there will be after Boeing's troubles and with ISS disposal looming.

dredmorbius
0 replies
22h7m

2010 article, "6 Private Companies That Could Launch Humans Into Space":

<https://www.space.com/8541-6-private-companies-launch-humans...>

That lists SpaceX, Orbital Sciences (since merged into Northrup Grumman), Blue Origin (which remains suborbital, though the orbital New Glenn is due for launch this year and Blue Moon is in development), Bigelow Aerospace (defunct), SpaceDev/Sierra Nevada Corporation (active, but struggling?), and Virgin Galactic (suborbital space tourism).

Wikipedia has a maintained list of current private spaceflight ventures, principally SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab*, Virgin Galactic, Axiom Space*, and Sierra Space. (Starred are additions to the space.com article's list).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_spaceflight>

cryptonector
0 replies
21h45m

Right now, without further development time? Russia.

fabian2k
15 replies
22h14m

I still find it hard to believe that the current Starliner doesn't have the ability to undock automatically without humans on board. The first test flight was able to do that.

cryptonector
6 replies
21h53m

Is it a hardware feature that's missing, or software? If the latter, can't it be restored? If the former, or if the latter but it can't be restored, is the docking station where Starliner is berthed going to remain unavailable forever? There are only TWO NASA docking stations. There are a bunch of Russian docking stations.

There's a hard rule for ISS that no astronaut may be on board the ISS without a corresponding return vehicle being docked at all times. This rule is effectively being violated for the two Starliner astronauts because they can't return on Starliner. And now no new Crew Dragons may berth without the current crew returning on the currently berthed Crew Dragon.

What a mess.

wongarsu
2 replies
21h44m

According to the arstechnica article linked by bell-cot it's a software issue:

"Well-placed sources said the current flight software on board Starliner, as configured, cannot perform an automated undocking from the space station and entry into Earth’s atmosphere. It will take about four weeks to update and validate the software for an autonomous return, should NASA decide it would be safer to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth inside a Crew Dragon spacecraft.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-confirms-slip-of-...

cryptonector
1 replies
21h39m

Thanks! That's comforting.

ethagknight
0 replies
7h10m

Is that comforting? That the capsule made it this far through “rigorous tests” overseen by a buddy system, without being able to perform a core function in the mission? I know that undocking is not easy, but it’s also the most steady-state part of the whole mission?

It seems to me like one more blatant shortcut9 that regulators permitted, and Boeing leadership check the box on a form saying “capability complete”

verzali
2 replies
11h18m

It's a software configuration as I understand it. The software itself is capable of the automated undocking, but it will need to be reconfigured to allow it.

ISS operations have very strict requirements about safety and especially about avoiding collisions with the station under any circumstance. There are also differences in requirements for crewed and uncrewed flights. For these reasons it makes sense that the configurations are different and would need to be updated if they switch to fully automated.

NASA has been pretty clear that Starliner could be used as an emergency escape if necessary. That leads me to think the concern is more about collision with the ISS that with the ability to re-enter safely.

TheOtherHobbes
1 replies
7h36m

Not an expert on this, but I would suspect a collision with the ISS might also have an effect on Starliner's ability to re-enter safely.

Maybe Boeing should send up the CEO with his golden parachute.

AnotherGoodName
0 replies
2h36m

The Boeing ceo did resign yesterday fwiw.

throwawaymaths
2 replies
22h6m

Surely you've taken out a feature in software and then later regretted it

TheCraiggers
1 replies
21h52m

Sure, but I've also never worked on any software directly responsible for the lives of human beings (as far as I know, anyway). I would like to think I'd operate a little differently if I were.

rvnx
0 replies
21h44m

It depends I think ?

See for example how Boeing works with the airplanes ( https://theprint.in/world/boeing-engineers-blame-cheap-india... )

At the end, I wouldn't be surprised if ChatGPT writes parts of critical code in some companies.

Just it would be very problematic to say it and nobody has interest into revealing that.

HarHarVeryFunny
1 replies
22h1m

I wonder if NASA were aware, or is it possible that they just assumed the demonstrated capability was there, and Boeing never told them this Starliner didn't have it ?!

I'd like to think NASA would consider all contingencies, but the Challenger O-ring disaster showed they can be as incompetent as Boeing themselves.

verzali
0 replies
11h16m

NASA would be fully aware of the capabilities and would not have made assumptions, especially for flight to the ISS. They are very strict about approaches to the ISS, and would have gone through it with a fine comb before the flight.

trebligdivad
0 replies
21h56m

They said on the call that the software though but it's a 'flight data' load which is all setup for normal crew use; who knows where the line is between data/code.

AnotherGoodName
0 replies
3h19m

I can’t help but feel this is part of a game being played.

“The capsule needs the crew!”

Some pressure to nasa to fly the crew back on this and also some ass covering if the really embarrassing occurs: the unmanned capsule does fail - “hey everyone it just failed because it had no crew! Nothing to worry about!”

blindriver
10 replies
11h6m

Unless the Boeing CEO and their children fly back down in the Starliner along with the astronauts, I don’t think anyone else should risk their lives on it.

st_goliath
8 replies
10h28m

Sure, that worked just brilliantly over at OceanGate

shiroiushi
4 replies
9h55m

That one was the exception to the rule. The vast majority of CEOs aren't actually that dumb and reckless with their own lives, just greedy and sociopathic.

Cthulhu_
3 replies
9h36m

Both Bezos and Branson stepped on board their respective spaceships as well.

shiroiushi
2 replies
9h11m

Those spaceships weren't as obviously stupid as OceanGate's sub. Also, those two aren't typical CEOs either, they're a bit more like OceanGate's CEO: they're ones who built their company from the ground up, and have some kind of strong drive to be the next Howard Hughes or something and be a leader in some revolutionary thing (spacecraft in their case, submarines in OceanGate's).

Boeing's CEO is not like these men. He's just a typical CEO who didn't build the company, and is just a temporary hired gun really, like most of them.

yard2010
1 replies
8h38m

Let's take a moment to appreciate the stupidity. Of course it's not nice to be a cpt. Hindsight. But he tried to build a sub in a... Sub-optimal shape (non-spherical), used inappropriate tools (wireless PS controllers? Wireless? Really?) and the most important idiotic mistake, after all these somewhat accepted mistakes - HE DIDN'T TEST IT. From what I read he just wasn't into testing.

It baffles me the level of stupidity a human can reach with no consequences from the society, what so ever. He is just a small example! I don't have enough space to write here all the CURRENT people who are literally running the world and are being proud to be stupid in public. How stupidity became a commodity?

pino82
0 replies
7h1m

Maybe it always was. But smartphones and social media definitely pushed it a lot.

You can even see it here, whenever people get downvoted just for posting something that is too uncomfortable (e.g. bcs it's criticism that touches their own lifestyle, ...).

There are ripple effects everywhere. Nowadays it's like yoi said: People are often explicitly proud to be stupid.

fakedang
1 replies
9h51m

Uh, that's the point?

philipwhiuk
0 replies
7h30m

It also killed other people.

philipwhiuk
0 replies
7h30m

Fun fact - even Boeing engineers thought Ocean Gate was really stupid.

yard2010
0 replies
8h46m

Sorry I don't provide any sources, but in ancient Rome the engineer that built a stone arc sometimes stood right below it when they removed the scaffolding supporting it. If he did a good job - he lives.

notfried
9 replies
22h34m

I know it is a privilege and a rare opportunity to go into space, but it strikes me as something that should be compensated for at higher than the going rate of astronaut salaries of $100-$150K/year. They overpay for every bolt but count the pennies when it comes to the salaries.

renewiltord
2 replies
22h12m

We spoke to a former cosmonaut in HFT. He was doing well. Moved here to the US, though.

nsxwolf
1 replies
22h6m

We? HFT?

100721
0 replies
22h3m

HFT is usually high frequency trading in tech and business communities.

Not sure if that's what the above poster means.

layer8
1 replies
21h37m

That’s not how salaries work though. Supply and demand.

jltsiren
0 replies
21h23m

Government salaries are more about politics and bureaucracy. And they often intentionally ignore supply and demand, paying the same amount for similar jobs, regardless of the field.

walrus01
0 replies
22h24m

Your average astronaut can easily walk into a $300k/year management job in some aerospace or technology related industry a short time after "retiring", on the other hand. Higher profile ones even more so.

beAbU
0 replies
11h21m

I will be an astronaut for $0 a year. Please pick me. If NASA is looking save more money they will save a ton with me.

addaon
0 replies
22h27m

The compensation they offer doesn’t seem to interfere with their ability to get the candidates they want. Why spend more?

Max-q
0 replies
22h10m

The opportunity to go to space is worth so much that I think they would get qualified people to do it for free, maybe even pay to have the job. So I don't think there is a need to pay more than a regular "good salary".

I would gladly have done it for $100k.

groby_b
5 replies
22h28m

Boeing's basically a defunct company at this point, no?

(Yes, there are still outstanding contracts, carriers don't like mixed fleets, etc, but... in terms of quality I can't see anybody saying "Yeah, Boeing, we're going there, that's the best you can buy")

wongarsu
2 replies
22h5m

Boing won't be allowed to fail until there's another American company building large passenger aircraft at scale.

kotaKat
1 replies
20h4m

Airbus Alabama laughs off in the distance.

kube-system
0 replies
4h32m

For defense purposes, it's desirable to have both the facilities and the full organizational hierarchy under direct legal jurisdiction.

tim333
0 replies
7h28m

They have a new CEO who's going to try to fix things. I wish him luck.

thedman9052
0 replies
22h4m

On the defense side, Boeing may be "too big to fail". After the the post Cold War consolidation, losing any of the big 5 USG contractors (Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics) would blow a huge hole in the industry. It's likely they'll be kept afloat with token contracts until they can get it back together. On the commercial side, Airbus is the only real alternative. I'm sure this is great for them but realistically how much of Boeing's market share could they scale up to fill? Embraer doesn't do large jets and the other manufacturers are Russian and Chinese.

SillyUsername
5 replies
10h36m

International Space Station so why not charter a Soyuz?

Cthulhu_
3 replies
10h35m

They would end up landing in Russia; with tensions between Russia and the west rising (i.e. the US supplying weapons to the country Russia is at war with at the moment), this isn't ideal.

I mean it's an option for sure and in case of emergency it won't really matter whose return pods they use, but it seems they prefer not to.

SillyUsername
0 replies
10h11m

Seems a bit of a ground control trust issue given there are 2 Russians up there at the moment, I wonder how they are intended to return at a future date.

andyjohnson0
0 replies
10h14m

Because there's no need.

Aardwolf
5 replies
21h33m

Too bad they can't just parachute down...

jakeinspace
2 replies
21h23m

With a really big parachute, you could I suppose. Although it would need to survive getting peppered with high velocity debris, and have a way of opening up without sufficient air drag.

Aardwolf
1 replies
20h29m

But would there be risk of burning in the atmosphere?

jakeinspace
0 replies
17h9m

Yes, you would burn up because after the chute slows you down just a little bit, you’ll quickly smash into the atmosphere at a fairly steep angle. One way you might be able to avoid burning up is by firing a rocket downwards to slow your fall while dragging the giant (like, tens of square km) parachute behind you to reduce velocity. Then, maybe, it would be possible to reenter at a gentle speed, eventually shutting off the rocket entirely. Of course, this would probably require something close to a weightless and infinitely strong chute.

__d
1 replies
19h33m

In the 1960's (I think?) NASA did studies on various emergency situations in preparation for the post-Apollo space stuff that never happened. I remember a zippered inflatable sphere that could be used to EVA a person between vehicles, and I think there was an inflatable cone-shaped reentry device that got out of orbit, and down to a reasonable altitude, before being discarded and the person used a parachute for landing.

A quick search turns up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Rescue_Enclosure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracone

tibbydudeza
3 replies
20h43m

Why can't they deorbit Starliner and let it land in the ocean without the astronauts ???.

If nothing happens then great rather than killing off the entire program with fatalities.

I know the flight control software is not designed for this but surely somebody must have thought of this scenario ???.

__d
1 replies
19h29m

They probably can.

NASA is worried about the thruster issue meaning that they lose control of the vehicle as it undocks and moves away from the ISS, leading to a collision. I guess that's independent of crew being on board.

But also ... the current Starliner software doesn't support an automated (uncrewed) undock. The previous one did, but some code and/or configuration changes are required to enable this on the current vehicle. NASA has said that making the changes to enable this will take about a month (including QA).

e_y_
0 replies
10h38m

In the press conference, they said the collision risk can be avoided by undocking the Starliner and then letting it float away to a safe distance before starting up the thrusters.

nerdjon
3 replies
21h49m

Glad that we finally got confirmation of the speculation that I saw on Ars last week that they are exploring using SpaceX.

I honestly can't imagine the conversations happening privately with the Astronauts. You know the problems this thing is happening but apparently you may still fly on it.

Like I get that space travel is still risky, even if SpaceX seems to make it look trivial at times, but it seems like an unecessary risk.

Assuming the Starliner can be on autopilot and bring itself home, let it do that to confirm if things are indeed working. Worst case you loose a vehical, but 2 people were not killed in the process.

The only thing that really surprised me is the 2025 timeline. I figured they would prefer to move some things around than wait that long?

cryptonector
2 replies
21h40m

Assuming the Starliner can be on autopilot

Apparently it can't. Idk if it's missing software, or missing hardware, though I'm gleaning from other comments here that it's software (thus presumably fixable).

blankx32
1 replies
13h17m

NASA have since clarified its software-parameterization not software that would need to be changed for uncrewed undock and return

cryptonector
0 replies
3h9m

That seems like a simpler problem to solve.

me_here_alone
2 replies
20h11m

This is not NASAs first time dealing with this type of scenario. The crew of Skylab 3 had thruster issues in their Apollo command module. NASA actually redesigned an Apollo capsule to seat 5 in a return to earth. It went so far as the rescue crew starting to seriously train for a launch. In the end they found workarounds for the issue and brought them home normally.

http://www.astronautix.com/s/skylabrescue.html

TMWNN
1 replies
17h52m

The rescue kit built for Apollo during Skylab, while a precedent, is not a complete one. Apollo was the only vehicle available in that situation, so if the CSM already at Skylab couldn't be used, the rescue CSM had to launch. There are alternatives to (say) squeezing in more than four people into Crew Dragon.

radicaldreamer
0 replies
15m

In case of a true emergency, would squeezing two people into one seat be that dangerous? (As in, is the safety envelope of the vehicle tied to weight in each seat?)

jmartin2683
2 replies
21h44m

If your company hires more scrum masters and project managers than engineers, this is where you’re heading.

htrp
1 replies
21h9m

I never understood why companies adopted diamond shaped org charts where middle management out-numbered people doing the work

grecy
0 replies
21h4m

Because middle management convinced them it was a good idea to do so!

giantg2
2 replies
4h1m

Airbus, SpaceX, Lockheed... Is there anyone not eating Boeing lunch at this point?

hersko
1 replies
3h51m

In all fairness, SpaceX is eating everyones lunch right now.

giantg2
0 replies
3h14m

Yeah, but I'm pointing out that a company with multiple sectors is looking weak in basically all of them. Even the military contracts they win have increasingly been money losers.

HarHarVeryFunny
2 replies
22h27m

The article is paywalled ... Does it say why such a long delay?

HarHarVeryFunny
0 replies
22h12m

Thanks!

The reason sounds like a combination of cost cutting and perhaps face saving - combining the "rescue" return with a half-crew next scheduled Dragon trip.

I've got to assume there's a faster contingency plan for a real emergency - that SpaceX could scramble a Dragon launch almost immediately if they had to?

skc
1 replies
8h22m

There are a surprisingly large number of people who believe that space doesn't exist and that all such expeditions are faked.

I sometimes wonder what goes through their heads when they read stories such as this one. What exactly is in it for Boeing, NASA and Space-X to fake all of this?

mopenstein
0 replies
6h47m

I'm no conspiracy theorist but, if it's fake, the money is still real. Redistributing billions of dollars to the elite heads of the illuminati under the cover of socalled "space exploration".

rouanza
1 replies
6h41m

Starliner needs to autonomously perform a few missions before risking human lives.

gus_massa
0 replies
4h16m

It's launched on the Atlas V. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

After 87 launches, in August 2021 ULA announced that Atlas V would be retired, and all 29 remaining launches had been sold. As of July 2024, 15 launches remain. Production ceased in 2024.

IIRC they only have enough reserved Atlas V to fulfill all the manned missions they promised to NASA, so there is no room unmanned for test. (And that's a huge problem!)

grendelt
1 replies
22h25m

But they're totally not "stuck" right, Boeing PR?

gomijacogeo
1 replies
17h20m

Will their existing suits work on SpaceX or will SpaceX-compatible suits need to be flown up? If the latter, I wonder what the odds are of a suit-related problem (e.g. doesn't fit, won't seal, etc).

cobbaut
0 replies
11h20m

No, they will need suits from SpaceX that fit.

IAmNotACellist
1 replies
21h13m

Remember this was called a conspiracy theory when people immediately said that, now it's just true. They tried to drip-feed this information to soften the blow I guess.

In fact, the first people to say that the extension in space was indicative of a serious problem and that Boeing's PR was BS were right, yet they were attacked.

shiroiushi
0 replies
12h36m

After the 737MAX debacle, with Boeing blaming the pilots for the crashes, how could anyone possibly trust Boeing's PR?

zeristor
0 replies
21h59m

Binliner

unreal37
0 replies
5h43m

What's fascinating to me is how they're going to call this a success when the mission is over.

I get that there are things that you can only test in space, and so they are testing. But if these astronauts get back, does Boeing then get certified to carry astronauts into space regularly from a successful test?

I should listen to the conference but how would they define the whole mission successful?

toomuchtodo
0 replies
22h52m

Responsive FOIA emails and related artifacts are going to be a treat when this is wrapped up.

siddarthd2919
0 replies
20h21m

What happens to the Boeing stuff that isn't making its way back? Space junk?

notact
0 replies
21h39m

After all of their technical failures, and known cultural problems leading to them, I am astonished Boeing has the nerve to insist it is safe. Seems like they are betting the whole space business farm on astronauts not dying on the way down.

marze
0 replies
1h8m

Building functioning thrusters should be a routine task, these are used on many spacecraft all the time. But rockets are hard. SpaceX blew up a capsule on the test stand, due to an issue with the propulsion system (thrusters).

The only way they will risk astronaut lives and various reputations allowing them to return on the Boeing capsule is if they are 100% certain of a positive outcome. There are no rescue vessels in space right now, so even a minor problem can be deadly.

It seems unlikely at this point 100% certainty will be reached. And I'm sure NASA is very annoyed that the capsule isn't configured to do an unmanned return. Boeing needs to upload and test software for unmanned return, otherwise it is stuck there until they have those issues worked out (1 of only 2 docking ports perhaps?).

m3kw9
0 replies
3h56m

With that much experience under their belt, they may just get a job to work there at the new station buildup

m3kw9
0 replies
4h0m

What a complete f-up boeing has been

firesteelrain
0 replies
7h24m

This is the same scenario people on here said wouldn’t happen. Shocking.

croes
0 replies
6h56m

Too late to shorten Boeing?

bparsons
0 replies
3h48m

I get the sense that Boeing is in true panic mode. They are spinning the media very hard to try and give off a "everything is fine" vibe.

allie1
0 replies
11h26m

Much safer to stay away from Starliner. I’d even avoid a Boeing airplane on their commercial flights home.