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Posted on 09/03/2024 1:52:35 PM PDT by george76
The good news is that Boeing was able to update the automated flight software on its troubled Starliner space capsule, allowing NASA to return it unmanned to Earth no sooner than Friday. The bad news — or at least the serious question — is whether Starliner will ever fly again.
NASA decided last week not to fly astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home on board the same ship they flew to ISS on due to safety concerns about the service module's malfunctioning thrusters. While an astronaut is sometimes scheduled in advance to return to Earth on board a different space capsule, this is the first time anything like Boeing's snafu has happened...
the discussion between NASA and Boeing "was heated."
"Boeing was convinced that the Starliner was in good enough condition to bring the astronauts home, and NASA disagreed. Strongly disagreed," a NASA source told ... "The thinking around here was that Boeing was being wildly irresponsible."
...
When that NASA source .., "Boeing wasn’t happy," that was certainly an understatement.
So, what's next for Starliner?
...
The company is already $1.6 billion in the red on Starliner.
...
....
Complicating things further, it seems impossible that NASA will not certify Starliner for any manned missions until it completes a manned flight test — at the company's expense under the fixed-price contract. That's going to cost Boeing at least another $100 million, plus however many millions it will take to diagnose and fix those thrusters.
Fixing Starliner means more delays, too — months? years? And ISS is scheduled to be deorbited (by a souped-up SpaceX Dragon) in 2030.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
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Well, there is that, that the astronuts were cut from different cloth, and all.
Still, there was a certain amount of “no other choice” then. Now, NASA has a different available choice, and they are availing themselves of it. The astronauts, then and now, are doing what mission control tells them to do.
The quickest and cheapest way for Boeing to get out of the mess they created would be for the CEO of Boeing to visit Elon Musk and offer to pay him and his team to fix Boeing’s space craft. I suspect that Musk and company would have it up and running within three months or less.
As an aside, if folks really want to learn about Elon Musk, his personality and the amazing things he has accomplished for the entire World, purchase the recently published biography written by Walter Isaacson.
Land it in Palestine
At least it will take out some Hamas tunnels when it craters.
I’m and ideas man, Chuck.
Back in the long ago, I was running a computer languages group in the Boston area and invited Captain Grace Hopper to speak. She spoke on the Archeology of Computers. Her thesis was that the knowledge that is accumulated at one point of time needs to be retained because future developments may make use of it. Small main memory computers solved problems in ways that the original small personal computers could make use of.
I can, to this day, see her standing so straight in her Navy uniform and saluting at the end. When I drove her back to the airport, she gave me the exact addresses to which I was to write and told me exactly what to say to the people paying her way. Worshipped that lady.
We put men on the moon in less than ten years, starting from scratch.
Boeing has been dicking around with this one orbital spacecraft for over ten years and it still doesn’t work.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has , for nearly half the cost, been putting spacecraft up on a regular basis, including missions to and from ISS.
Boeing absorbed McDonnell Douglas, so I don’t think any other US company makes jetliners, a big American export, anymore. One way or another, they aren’t going to go under.
Lockheed, Convair, Grumman....all used to make aircraft. Now, it’s just Boeing and Airbus for larger passenger aircraft. Sure, there are others (DeHaviland, Embraer) but they don’t do bigger planes.
“NASA will not certify Starliner for any manned missions until it completes a manned flight test’
This sexist. I suggest peeelosi and hawk tuah hariss for the first flight.
The difference is SpaceX hires talent, Boeing hires identity groups and NASA spreads the word of the prophet Muhammad.
“Boeing will likely cancel the Starliner and use the money on the R&D costs for the next generation of airliners. “
Um, nope. Boeing has canceled R&D on new aircraft, and Starliner was built with funds they received to build it and will not be receiving again.
“I suspect that Musk and company would have it up and running within three months or less”
I suspect Musk would tell Boeing to scratch it and start fresh...with a new company.
Given their current product history, no one should simply just “trust” Boeing.
Probably will fly again ... back to Earth trip.
Or offer to buy Boeing for one dollar.
S0C4? You’re dating yourself :)
- ex-MVS/TSO’er
Learning to read core dumps was my fatal path to the future...
-PJ
Well, it’ll fly down. How fast is anyone’s guess.
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