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Boeing's Starliner


Kryten

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What I want to know is if they are giving us back our 287 million dollars—the extra money they were given since they would fly crew first and would also have to send 2 mission in one year (even though their contract already required that).

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7 minutes ago, tater said:

What I want to know is if they are giving us back our 287 million dollars—the extra money they were given since they would fly crew first and would also have to send 2 mission in one year (even though their contract already required that).

Why not just ask NASA?

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4 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Why not just ask NASA?

Haven't seen that asked in any press conf. Was sort of expecting Berger to ask it, honestly. Next "#asknasa" at a presser I will submit it.

They were paid because at the time it looked very likely that Starliner would not only go first (after the Dragon explosion), but send a full crew on both of the first flights. SpaceX has sent a crew fro more than the test flight duration (staying til August), and 4 more crew are following later in August.

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Oh, how generous of them to offer to fix multiple deadly bugs before they put humans in there when client points their finger at them and order stuff to be fixed.

Somehow, I think it's NASA that has a lesson to learn from this, the lesson being titled "Dropping Boeing".

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40 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Somehow, I think it's NASA that has a lesson to learn from this, the lesson being titled "Dropping Boeing".

The whole point of Commercial Crew was to have 2 providers in case one has an issue. Dropping Boeing would be the opposite of accomplishing that goal. What happens in a phase 2 of the program can still be open.

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2 hours ago, tater said:

The whole point of Commercial Crew was to have 2 providers in case one has an issue. Dropping Boeing would be the opposite of accomplishing that goal. What happens in a phase 2 of the program can still be open.

At what point do you come to the conclusion that one of the providers *is* the issue?

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1 minute ago, wumpus said:

At what point do you come to the conclusion that one of the providers *is* the issue?

At this point Starliner is nearly good to go, though. I'm not a fan of Boeing at this point for human space stuff, but it's basically ready. Hence my statement regarding whatever round 2 looks like. Hopefully at that point SNC has Dream Chaser flights under their belt, and goes ahead and resubmits the crew version (which should have won over Starliner, anyway, IMO).

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4 hours ago, tater said:

The whole point of Commercial Crew was to have 2 providers in case one has an issue. Dropping Boeing would be the opposite of accomplishing that goal. What happens in a phase 2 of the program can still be open.

Exactly.

I mean, what if there is an issue with SpaceX five years from now? The whole idea was to have some redundancy, precisely so that if one of the programs went through some trouble, the other would still be available.

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14 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Exactly.

I mean, what if there is an issue with SpaceX five years from now? The whole idea was to have some redundancy, precisely so that if one of the programs went through some trouble, the other would still be available.

Yeah, it's very much in the spirit of BuAer before WW2. They procured naval air assets. They'd have a contract, and finalize on 2. Prewar for fighters it was the fourth pursuit plane Grumman built for them, the F4F, and the second from Brewster, the F2A. The Brewster was famously not great in the Pacific, though it had the highest kill/loss ratio of any single type in the war when flown by the Finns. The F4F replacement was a contract split between the F6F and the F4U. F6F got the bulk of the Navy orders, F4U ended up mostly in the Marines (though arguably the better aircraft). The F4U had some carrier landing issues at first, but BuAer had 2 to work with, so they could operate the first on CVs, use the second on land bases, then work out the CV issue over time.

I see this the same way. Once round 2 happens, I'd like to see SNC get a shot, because Dream Chaser is cool, but honestly, if it was a simple price per seat thing, I'd want to see all 3 fly.

Edited by tater
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9 hours ago, tater said:

The whole point of Commercial Crew was to have 2 providers in case one has an issue. Dropping Boeing would be the opposite of accomplishing that goal. What happens in a phase 2 of the program can still be open.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree with the idea to have a backup, but you have to continually assess both options and, in case of an egregious fault, step in. Decision to develop two systems should not mean being stuck with both at all cost with no option to cut ties with one that is fumbling.

I obviously don't have access to all the intricacies of the deal between NASA and Boeing, but if I were some big honcho at NASA I'd be pretty peeved with Boeing and their apparent lack of quality control and overall approach, and demand quite a big software and general practices review.

I'm not bothered by the fact that Starliner test mission failed, rocket science is hard, I get it. I'm bothered by how and why it failed, because, in this case, the problem wasn't rocket science, and that is indicative of some serious systemic faults in the Boeing management, which is much harder to fix than stuck valves, loose nuts or frozen o-rings. Also, NASA is not nearly firm enough with the language, not calling Boeing negligent, with only recently labeling the failure as "High Visibility Close Call". Seriously? That's the assessment?

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7 hours ago, Shpaget said:

I obviously don't have access to all the intricacies of the deal between NASA and Boeing, but if I were some big honcho at NASA I'd be pretty peeved with Boeing and their apparent lack of quality control and overall approach, and demand quite a big software and general practices review.

Pretty sure NASA are peeved. But Boeing still has friends and influence inside NASA, but things are changing. A Boeing mole recently “resigned” after slipping them some intel.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/boeing-moon-lander-nasa-doug-loverro-resignation.html
 

 

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