Boeing Staff and Upper Management
Posted on 08/22/2024 1:46:23 PM PDT by george76
Boeing Starliner program manager Mark Nappi ... it's no surprise that the company's Starliner crewed flight test is taking longer than expected — so far, almost ten times longer than expected. NASA astronauts Butch Williams and Suni Wilmore are on Day 77 of their eight-day stay aboard the International Space Station.
Nappi says he regrets not doing a better job of managing expectations.
"I think we all knew that it was going to go longer than that.. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about how much longer, but I think it’s my regret that we didn’t just say ‘We’re going to stay up there until we get everything done that we want to go do.'"
What a crock of you-know-what.
There's a lot more at stake than merely deferring a discussion about how long Starliner's crewed flight test might take. At issue are little, multimillion-dollar details like Starliner hogging one of the ISS's very few docking ports. There are staffing issues, too — SpaceX's Crew-9 mission has been delayed by five weeks and its crew potentially reduced to two from four. Let's not forget that every bit of food and water on board the ISS has to be brought up from Earth at about $60 million per cargo run — and Butch & Suni's needs have increased from eight days, now to 77 days, possibly to as long as eight months.
...
2014, SpaceX received $2.6 billion to develop Crew Dragon, which has been flying manned missions since 2020. That same year — approximately 1.6 times longer until now than it took for Apollo to land men on the moon — Boeing won $4.2 billion to develop Starliner, and it has yet to successfully complete a single manned mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
yes it’s true they can’t undock without crew inside starliner, because in Boeing infent wisdom they took out the auto docking /undocking sequence from their flight software.
an EVA will not help.
yes boeing is updating the flight software to allow for auto undocking, but they have to test the software first.
They had the software developed and tested at one point, correct?
What did they do to it—feed it to their dogs?
Lol.
The numbers and the incompetence boggle my mind.
On May 30, 2020, Crew Dragon (SpaceX) became the first American spacecraft to carry astronauts to orbit since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, and the first private spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.
Since then, Crew Dragon vehicles have flown 49 different astronauts (one of them twice) to space on 13 missions, nine of them for NASA and four of them private.
But how could anyone be expected to trust the capsule if its service module is nothing but a boat anchor?
ELON will rescue them-—ANS there will be MINTS ON THEIR PILLOWS.
Same systems that have been run for Years at Bonneville Salt Flats by LAND SPEED RECORD CARS.
CALL PETE FARNSWORTH In MENOMONEE FALLS, WIS.
HIS “BLUE FLAME” ran 630 MPH in 1970...HYPERGOLIC PROPULSION
Can you remember the name?
They knew they had a helium leak before launch, but misplaced priorities had an entire team ignore the problem.
The helium provides the pressure to move the propellant to the thrusters that control on orbit and re-entry maneuvers.
Once the leak starts it doesn't stop until the helium supply is depleted, assuming there are no cut-off valves upstream of the leak.
To resolve the problem in space assumes you have access to replace or intercept the helium supply system and you'll need plenty of it because the leak is not repairable in space. So you'll need enough helium to account for the leak rate and the still conduct a safe return.
Good luck determining the leak rate.
And I just read today that the Boeing craft must have a crew board in order to undock. So they can’t just undock it and release it in an absolute emergency, it’s attached until they get a crew on board. It’s possible a software update may allow for automatic undocking. But boy with their luck I’d make sure the airlocks were closed first
musk should start a towing and recovery business for situations like this...
I suspect they’re going to have to disconnect it, and check it into the ocean. But I just read today that it can’t undock without a crew on board. They disabled that functionality and are attempting to reinstate it in orbit.
With their luck I would hate to Trust automatically undocking
Between NASA and SpaceX, the rocket/aerospace industry has completely changed. NASA used to issue Cost Plus contracts. No matter the original contract bid/proposal, when costs went higher than the original contract, NASA just cut a check. As SpaceX reuses, over and over again, rockets, fairings, etc, the cost of each launch plummets.
NASA no longer issues Cost Plus contracts. Any Boeing Starliner cost overruns are absorbed by Boeing. Starliner was delayed years. In one of the most insane situations ever, Boeing somehow used flammable materials in some of the capsule. After Apollo 1, any talk of fire in the capsule conjures up nothing good. Boeing was used to spending, well, more.
While some of the recent airline/airplane issues attributed to Boeing are really maintenence issues of the airlines, Boeing is so tainted, no one is putting Boeing at the top of the service ladder.
Funny because Musk is South African.
Somebody actually volunteered to go up in those space coffins?
Not in orbit, as in “up and over and around”. More like a “Merry go Round”. Now there suits are not compatible. What a production?...
No, he’s African-American.
Somebody actually volunteered to go up in those space coffins?”
One would think folks would understand not to do anything risky when Dims are in charge.
Another example of Dim danger is the unfortunate Ambassador Stevens.
We drove fast cars with big engines, bias-ply tires, manual transmissions, drum brakes (no “anti-lock”), and neither transistors nor “electronic chips” controlling the drive train.
Lucky, if we had tinted windows, seat belts, AM/FM radio, front disc brakes, power steering, power brakes, and air-conditioning (after-market add-on).
We had slide rules, drawings, and schematics . . . all worked out on paper.
And we had FORTRAN.
My first computer course was a Sperry Univac 2nd gen.; and the professor was one of the developers of that machine. No monitor. Several RED lights and toggle switches - no cards, but there was a paper tape punch/reader thing.
We made metal, and we were really good at it. A friend made the antennae for the Apollo spacecraft and landers.
When we wanted a satellite view of weather conditions, the image was rendered and printed in Alabama. A USAF pilot would leave Texas, thence to Alabama, thence to Wright-Patterson AFB.
Now days, I find it difficult to accurately convey the focus we had, how we pursued what worked and constantly double-checked things.
Yep, and quality varies widely.
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