Boeing's Starliner

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

I don't see anything, or is that the joke?

The link in the post goes to a grok imagining of Starliner in orbit.  I couldn't find an obvious way to share that directly, sorry

[mikegarrison]

16 hours ago, Jacke said:

My background is Canadian Forces Army, not Navy.  But the shear craze of needing multiple adaptors for at-sea replenishment of liquids (I remember an old video looking at several then in use) had another NATO standard set up and the ships adapted to it so the need for adaptors is now minimal.  I suspect other non-NATO navies may hold to it.

Such should be done with at least spacesuits at this time.

[monophonic]

10 hours ago, darthgently said:

The link in the post goes to a grok imagining of Starliner in orbit.  I couldn't find an obvious way to share that directly, sorry

Spoiler

All I see in the linked twitter post is a flat black image. No starliner anywhere to be seen. Or anything else for that matter. Is that the joke or has the image got censored?

 

[kerbiloid]

If watch the picture seeming black for a while in a dark room, and let the eyes adapt to the night vision, one can see a gray pixel, which is ISS with a docked Starliner.

Lifehack: the night vision better works with peripheral vision ^*), so one should look aside, trying to see the gray pixel at the edge of the field of view.

Spoiler

Offtopic:
This effect is perfectly simulated in Bethesda's Terminator: Future Shock, when you have to "look" with mouse at the edge, then you see fuzzy gray figures at the screen center.

 

Edited August 27 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

On 8/26/2024 at 4:35 AM, Jacke said:

A long time ago, I was at a Gun Camp in the Suffield Training Area in a very cold November.  No one could leave the main camp or field bivouac without their sleeping bag as if the weather turned and their vehicle broke down, you could die even during the day without it.

As for Starliner, well, this better be the Boeing Nadir because to go lower will likely involve more loss of life.  That means despite all the testing done on-orbit and on the ground, NASA is not sufficiently confident of Starliner just for the few maneuvers to return and re-enter and land.  This means it likely exceeds the previous experiences of similar problems on Dragon.

What this has also revealed is the shear stupidity of no interoperability of spacesuits between craft.  This needs to be fixed pronto.  It should also include the Russians and the Chinese as better to plan for it and not need it than to need it and not plan for it.

For the Starliner crew, hopefully they were fitted for SpaceX suits.  Or such suits that will fit them for re-entry are sent up.  I still remember Soyuz 11 and it would be madness to risk that again.

(While thinking of worse case scenarios, I thought of an evil one: Starliner returns okay, but Dragon 9 doesn't.  Damn unlikely, but damn....)

Might be hard to fix as SpaceX uses air to cool the spacesuit while water is most common. This is an element during the space walk as they use pure oxygen and low pressure they need more cooling air. 
Add that astronauts will be moving around here generating more heat. 
Benefit of using air is that you need air to breath anyway and leaks inside the suit is not an problem. I assume air is distributed trough the suit as in into arms and legs then flow back inside suit before getting tapped out for cooling, and reused. Now it could be possible to make an adapter for air to breath. 

[darthgently]

8 hours ago, monophonic said:

  Reveal hidden contents

All I see in the linked twitter post is a flat black image. No starliner anywhere to be seen. Or anything else for that matter. Is that the joke or has the image got censored?

 

If the "insert image from url" actually worked here I'd post the image but I tried putting the direct link to the image but it was unnavigable after post so I removed it.

Let me describe it for you: 

Imagine a jumbo jet with an open space shuttle like cargo bay in orbit.

Just so I know the limits for future posts, did you go to the X post on X and the link in the post just took you to a black screen? If so maybe you need grok access to see shared grok interactions.  So a blue check acct.  Idk, guessing.  But probably just a bug

Edited August 27 by darthgently

[darthgently]

 

Please, please, please let the team that wrangle and open the splashed Dragon have enough of a sense of humor to at least put on ape masks.  We need some comic relief in the simulation

[monophonic]

16 hours ago, darthgently said:

If the "insert image from url" actually worked here I'd post the image but I tried putting the direct link to the image but it was unnavigable after post so I removed it.

Let me describe it for you: 

Imagine a jumbo jet with an open space shuttle like cargo bay in orbit.

Just so I know the limits for future posts, did you go to the X post on X and the link in the post just took you to a black screen? If so maybe you need grok access to see shared grok interactions.  So a blue check acct.  Idk, guessing.  But probably just a bug

Thanks! That sounds like a kerbal design all right. I did go through all the links, but all I saw was the black image. I have no account of any kind though, so might not need to be verified to see.

 

[Gargamel]

On 8/27/2024 at 9:55 AM, darthgently said:

f the "insert image from url" actually worked here I'd post the image

Just post the link directly into the text, the editor will automatically expand it for you.    Yes, it’s on my to do list to add this to the new user guide.   
 

 

Oh yeah, a twitter link.    Yeah they made it difficult to link to their pics directly.   

Edited August 28 by Gargamel

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

Just post the link directly into the text, the editor will automatically expand it for you.    Yes, it’s on my to do list to add this to the new user guide.   
 

 

Oh yeah, a twitter link.    Yeah they made it difficult to link to their pics directly.   

I downloaded and uploaded to imgur.  My description from memory was terrible, but in my defense I was laughing and not taking it seriously

https://imgur.com/gallery/grok-hallucinating-boeing-starliner-orbit-wZLx4mO

 

[mikegarrison]

NPR wonders, like I did, whether Boeing might just step away from Starliner entirely. Which, in the end, would be a problem for both Boeing and for NASA. It's quite possible that both of them could have spent billions on developing a capability that NASA doesn't trust enough to make use of.

http://www.npr.org/2024/08/27/nx-s1-5086709/boeing-starliner-spacex-space-future

Edited August 29 by mikegarrison

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

NPR wonders, like I did, whether Boeing might just step away from Starliner entirely. Which, in the end, would be a problem for both Boeing and for NASA. It's quite possible that both of them could have spent billions on developing a capability that NASA doesn't trust enough to make use of.

http://www.npr.org/2024/08/27/nx-s1-5086709/boeing-starliner-spacex-space-future

The cold reality is that "too big to fail" typically resides on the boundary of "too big to salvage".  Finding leaders to make the tough decisions is hard. The school of hard knocks is mercilessly unforgiving to the recalcitrant.  But more so to those whose blood and treasure the recalcitrant spend

[Gargamel]

12 hours ago, darthgently said:

I downloaded and uploaded to imgur.  My description from memory was terrible, but in my defense I was laughing and not taking it seriously

https://imgur.com/gallery/grok-hallucinating-boeing-starliner-orbit-wZLx4mO

 

Add the .jpeg/.png to the end of that link and it should work fine.     Right click on the image itself, not the webpage.   

[kerbiloid]

They could sell the whole CST project to NK, and make it their headache instead of Boeing's.

It would be a real white elephant.

[Ricktoberfest]

But who will they get to launch astronauts when they ground falcon for having a leg collapse on landing?  The Russians?

[kerbiloid]

(Quiet sounds of whispering from Orion/SLS and DreamChaser places in the suddenly fallen silence.)

[mikegarrison]

10 hours ago, darthgently said:

The cold reality is that "too big to fail" typically resides on the boundary of "too big to salvage".  Finding leaders to make the tough decisions is hard. The school of hard knocks is mercilessly unforgiving to the recalcitrant.  But more so to those whose blood and treasure the recalcitrant spend

It would have been really easy to salvage this particular relationship, actually. Just let Butch and Suni fly back down on Starliner. NASA decided not to make that choice.

I would be really curious to know what Butch and Suni think themselves, but we likely won't ever know that.

[GuessingEveryDay]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

It would have been really easy to salvage this particular relationship, actually. Just let Butch and Suni fly back down on Starliner. NASA decided not to make that choice.

I would be really curious to know what Butch and Suni think themselves, but we likely won't ever know that.

It depends on what happens to Starliner when it comes down. If Starliner gets down without any problems, Butch and Suni still get some great time in space. If Starliner has a problem ranging from loss of guidance to loss of vehicle, Butch and Suni enjoy space anyways.

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I would be really curious to know what Butch and Suni think themselves

"Wow! We had a well paid good time, and will ride two different ships in the same flight instead of just one!"

Spoiler

 

 

[darthgently]

17 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It would have been really easy to salvage this particular relationship, actually. Just let Butch and Suni fly back down on Starliner. NASA decided not to make that choice.

I would be really curious to know what Butch and Suni think themselves, but we likely won't ever know that.

I can see that.  But I can also see it as NASA perceiving themselves as having put themselves in the wind already by allowing crew on the ascent after reviewing the helium issue and not wanting to possibly double down on a questionable call by allowing crew on the return .

If Starliner comes home without issue on the 6th it will be a good thing and NASA will merely have been prudent.  But if it has issues related to the seal problem that could have posed a crew danger NASA will be fully vindicated.  They really didn't have much choice from my view

Edited August 30 by darthgently

[mikegarrison]

8 hours ago, darthgently said:

I can see that.  But I can also see it as NASA perceiving themselves as having put themselves in the wind already by allowing crew on the ascent after reviewing the helium issue and not wanting to possibly double down on a questionable call by allowing crew on the return .

If Starliner comes home without issue on the 6th it will be a good thing and NASA will merely have been prudent.  But if it has issues related to the seal problem that could have posed a crew danger NASA will be fully vindicated.  They really didn't have much choice from my view

They clearly had a choice, because it took them months to make it, and in the press conference they openly said that the analysis hadn't closed in either direction.

I'm not even saying they made the wrong choice. But they made a choice, and like all choices it has consequences. One of them is that, whatever they wanted to do, they (further) damaged Boeing and their relationship with Boeing.

Now obviously, if the Starliner has some sort of LOC failure, then they will have made the right call. And if they have some sort of LOC event that happens later, they will have made the wrong call. But most likely, neither thing happens, and then it won't be obvious whether they made the right call or the wrong call.

I do think, however, that they have indicated they only have trust in Dragon, which pretty much shatters the idea of redundant commercial crew capacity. Not unless something changes later.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

They clearly had a choice, because it took them months to make it, and in the press conference they openly said that the analysis hadn't closed in either direction.

I'm not even saying they made the wrong choice. But they made a choice, and like all choices it has consequences. One of them is that, whatever they wanted to do, they (further) damaged Boeing and their relationship with Boeing.

Now obviously, if the Starliner has some sort of LOC failure, then they will have made the right call. And if they have some sort of LOC event that happens later, they will have made the wrong call. But most likely, neither thing happens, and then it won't be obvious whether they made the right call or the wrong call.

I do think, however, that they have indicated they only have trust in Dragon, which pretty much shatters the idea of redundant commercial crew capacity. Not unless something changes later.

Yeah, no.  Boeing damaged Boeing.  NASA was just riding out the PR storm.   NASA played the cards dealt as well as could be expected.   Boeing, unlike card dealers, actually weren't required to shuffle the deck and had plenty of time and money, along with Aerojet-Rocketdyne, to decide exactly what cards were dealt.  They made bad choices on what to do with that time and money.  Putting this on NASA is weird.

[mikegarrison]

12 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Putting this on NASA is weird.

Every source, including NASA themselves, says they made the call. That means they put it on themselves. Denying that is weird.

[Ultimate Steve]

The surface level statement is that the analysis hadn't closed. Deeper down it had been over two months of the analysis not closing with a lot of uncertainty still remaining. This is a bit of a stretch but  I would wager that there was no indication that the analysis would close any time soon. That's not necessarily a red flag but it's at least a yellow flag.

At a certain point a decision has to be made before you start running into other stuff like docking port scheduling (there are only two ports of this type), cargo stuff, and Dragon's max rated orbital time so there is a fuzzy upper bound on how much time is reasonable for the analysis.

If Boeing can say it's safe and nasa says no, that's something that needs addressing. But Boeing had over 2 months to figure it out when the iss schedule called for that port to be occupied for 8 days, and they still can't decide if it is safe or not. I can see why nasa felt the need for calling it this way.

[mikegarrison]

14 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

If Boeing can say it's safe and nasa says no, that's something that needs addressing. But Boeing had over 2 months to figure it out when the iss schedule called for that port to be occupied for 8 days, and they still can't decide if it is safe or not. I can see why nasa felt the need for calling it this way.

Boeing did say it was safe. It was NASA that after two months could not internally agree whether it was safe (enough) or not. This was very clear from the statements made by NASA in the press conference.