Boeing is doing a worse job with SLS than it is with Starliner!! The latest from NASA OIG! [17:18]

I tried to clean up the transcript. What a mess to understand. I used a Regex editor to clear out the numbered lines and put the text together. Then manually put in punctuation, capitals where needed and hope I broke the sentences where they should be.

Good afternoon on today’s angry bulletin we’ve just gotten finished talking about Starliner and all of the problems that this new vehicle is presenting to NASA. And the fact that Boeing can’t seem to do much of anything right anymore. But no one’s really been talking about the other major Boeing project that NASA is depending on tremendously Especially when we’re talking about our Return To The Moon.

Well that is until now the NASA office of Inspector General once again made a deep dive examination of the SLS project, and how Boeing was handling the whole thing and it turns out that at least when it comes to the latest version of SLS. That is to say the block 1B which is going to be absolutely necessary to return astronauts to the moon this time to stay well. Boeing is doing a horrendous job in spite of all the efforts that have been made to try to improve their management of the project. And this could spell the end of Artemis before it even really gets started.

All this and more coming at on the angry astronaut right now. Good afternoon and welcome to another angry bulletin first of all I would like to thank the following incredible people Kurt Griffith and Edward McMurray Michael fireberg and Jeff wils who have recently contributed towards my efforts to get back across the Atlantic to cover the SpaceX NASA crew 9 mission. For the first time I’ve been afforded a press pass from NASA. I’d like to thank NASA very much for letting me behind the curtain for once and uh getting an opportunity to get a behind the scenes tour interviewing the astronauts and of course covering this historic launch in person.

Of course I’m going to be bringing you all of those details here on the angry astronaut. If you’d like to support this trip all the details in the description, okay enough about that. Let’s talk about NASA’s office of Inspector General and their latest damning report of SLS. By the way, I’d also like to express my appreciation to the NASA office of Inspector General for being so transparent about these problems and being so Vigilant in tracking down these issues and trying to do something about it. For a government agency they do a damn good job and I think we should all recognize that. Okay, so let’s talk about the problems that we’re having with SLS or more specifically the SLS block 1B quote scheduled to launch in September of 2028 right.

Artemis 4 will be the first flight of NASA’s more powerful heavy lift rocket the SLS block 1B. The rocket is designed to increase the amount of cargo the SLS can deliver to the Moon. A critical component of this upgrade is the Boeing’s development of the SLS’s new upper stage, the exploration upper stage, or E. Once completed the EUS will give the SLS a 40% upgrading capability to send the Orion multi-purpose CRE vehicle capsule and large car goes to the moon from 27 metric tons under block 1 to 38 metric tons with block 1B that’s a big Improvement. It means that you can send the Orion and everything necessary for a lengthy trip to the moon plus an additional 11 tons of cargo. For example a new module for the lunar Gateway space station.

Incidentally if NASA had actually played their cards right on this whole thing you could have to fit the Alpaca lunar lander inside the exploration upper stage in the same launch. Therefore, requiring only a single refueling mission to the Moon to fuel up the Alpaca for a complete Journey to the moon and back. And since Alpaca is reusable you wouldn’t have had to launch it again. You just have to send out one refueling tanker every time you want to send it to the moon. Which is a hell of a lot less complicated than either blue origin or space X solution. Nevertheless doesn’t matter, block 1B will still have at least some purpose assuming of course that it actually gets off the ground.

But here’s the problem, Boeing’s E contract has grown from $962,000 to over 2 billion through 2025 contributing to the overall SLS block 1B cost increase. And while NASA requires its Aerospace contractors to have quality assurance programs that comply with standards on Quality Management Systems we found that Boeing’s quality management system does not adhere to these standards or NASA requirements NASA engages the DCMA which stands for defense contract management agency to conduct surveillance of Boeing’s core and upper stage manufacturing efforts and when deficiencies and quality are found the DCMA issues corrective action requests to the contractor correct.

I’ve action requests, are labeled 1 through 4, with level one being the least serious deficiency from September of 20(1?)21 to September of 2023, the DCMA issued Boeing 71 level one and level two corrective action requests, as well as a draft level three corrective action request, according to DCMA officials this is a high number of corrective actions for a space flight system at this stage in development, and reflects a recurring inte degrad state of product quality control. Boeing’s process to address deficiencies to date has been ineffective and the company has generally been nonresponsive in taking corrective actions when the same quality control issues reoccur. Does that sound familiar? Well it should.

Let’s go on quality control issues at Mishu, which by the way is where a lot of the assembly work is done on the court stage of SLS and also on the exploration upper stage are largely due to the lack of a sufficient number of trained and experienced Aerospace workers at Boeing. I’m surprised anybody still works at that company that has any desire to protect their reputation or their careers. But let’s go on to mitigate these challenges. Boeing provides training and work orders to its employees considering the significant quality control deficiencies that Mishu we found these efforts to be inadequate for example during our visit to Mishu in April of 2023 we observed a liquid oxygen fuel tank Dome a critical component of the SLS cor stage three segregated and pending disposition on WEA. And how it can be safely used going forward due to welds that did not meet NASA’s specifications. Kind of late to notice these sorts of issues according to NASA officials the welding issues arose due to Boeing’s inexperienced technicians and inadequate work order planning and supervision the lack of a trained and qualified Workforce increases the risk that Boeing will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA’s requirements and Industry standards we project SLS block 1B costs will reach approximately $5.7 billion, before the system is scheduled to launch in 2028. This is 700 million more than NASA’s 2023 agency Baseline commitment which established a cost and schedule Baseline nearly $5 billion which is a huge amount of money to begin with. But nevertheless exploration upper stage development accounts for more than half of that cost which we estimate will increase from an initial cost of 962 million in 2017 to nearly 2.8 billion through 2028. Boeing’s delivery of the exploration upper stage to NASA has also been delayed from February of 2021 to April of 2027. over 6 years. And when combined with other factors suggests the September 2028 emis 4 launch date could be delayed as well. I’d say that’s almost certainly the case factors contributing to these cost increases and scheduled delays include redirection of e funds to the core stage during Artemis one production.

Changing Artemis Mission assignments maintaining an extended Workforce 7 years more than planned manufacturing issues and supply chain challenges NASA delayed establishing the block 1B agency Baseline commitment until December of 2023. After 10 years of development and much later in the Project Life Cycle than NASA’s stand standard practice and to make matters worse according to the OIG this situation is not going to improve without outside intervention primarily at least one of the major reasons is because the Boeing’s defense earned value management system which NASA uses to measure contract cost and scheduled progress.

And is required on all projects with a life cycle cost greater than $250 million has been disapproved by the Department of Defense since 2020 this precludes Boeing from reliably predicting an exploration upper stage delivery date or cost estimate in the long run so obviously Boeing is not up to handling this task and a lot of you are probably screaming at the TV right now and saying let’s just go ahead and handle this whole thing over to SpaceX and Starship well let me briefly explain to you why NASA is unlikely to go that route right now. We have no idea how long it’s going to be before Starship is going to be safe enough to carry human beings up to orbit and then to bring them back down through the atmosphere to a safe landing it could be 10 years perhaps even longer or Starship May simply never be safe enough to carry human passengers from the surface of the Earth up to orbit and back and certainly not in the short run.

Now a lot of you may be thinking well let’s just go ahead and transfer crew over in orbit utilizing crew Dragon well there’s a problem with that theory as well. And I’m going to provide a brief explanation there is some question as to whether or not Starship is going to have enough fuel to travel all the way from low earth orbit to land safely on the moon and then get all the way back to low earth orbit and decelerate into a safe orbit in the process. If you look at this Delta V map you will see that the amount of kilomet per second worth of Delta V required to reach the lunar surface is 6.4 km/s approximately which means to get all the way back to low earth orbit would require another 6.4 km/s or a total of 12.8 this is actually substantially more Delta V than it is required to get star shift from Earth orbit to the surface of Mars and I seriously doubt whether or not Starship can actually carry enough fuel to do that the only way you can really cheat on this system is if you use Earth’s atmosphere to decelerate meaning that you have to carry out a successful re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere without having an opportunity to enter a safe orbit and then dock with a crew Dragon meaning that if we’re going to use Starship to take astronauts all the way to the moon and back we are going to have no choice but to utilize an atmospheric re-entry regardless of how dangerous that might be. And in my opinion it’s going to be a while before NASA’s really going to be comfortable with that solution now for those of you who think that I’m full of crap on all of this and are asking how was dear Moon supposed to do all of this if they weren’t going to be able to dock with crew Dragon in Earth orbit. Well dear moon was never going to set down on the surface of the Moon it was just going to carry out a free return orbit around the moon and that saves a ton of Delta V if you’re actually going to land on the moon and then come back and not use the atmosphere to decelerate it requires a lot of Delta V. And a lot of fuel as I say I’m not absolutely certain that Starship can’t do it but it’s going to be hard pressed the only solution that I can see maybe is to refuel Starship in in lunar orbit as well which adds a hell of a lot of complexity to a future Mission just getting SLS working properly is still the simplest solution. The problem is we’ve got Boeing running the show still so here’s what the office of Inspector General recommends number one coordinate with Boeing the SLS stages prime contractor to develop a quality management system training program that is compliant with current NASA standards and reviewed by the appropriate NASA officials.

And two Institute Financial penalties for Boeing’s non-compliance with quality control standards to minimize the impact on the Artemis campaign’s timeline and Achieve sustainability we recommend that the associate administrator for the exploration systems development Mission directorate do the number three perform a detailed cost overrun analysis on Boeing stages contract for EU US development. And to provide greater visibility into cost and schedule estimates for SLS upgrades the OIG recommends that NASA coordinate with the DCMA to ensure contractual compliance so unsurprisingly NASA did not respond well to recommendation number two because according to them Financial penalties fall outside the bounds of the contract what you mean NASA signed a contract with Boeing that has no Financial penalties whatsoever regardless of how bad of a job they do it’s just ridiculous hard to believe this contract was ever signed and at this point. I really think it just needs to be either cancelled or totally renegotiated and at the very least. I think the OIG’s recommendations are good but I don’t think they go far enough I really think that this contract needs to be handed over to an independent company that is going to review the processes and to make sure Boeing is actually doing their job somebody who’s familiar with the contract somebody who’s familiar with how Boeing does things but somebody who’s still independent and can do what’s right for NASA and for the American people rather than for themselves. That company in my opinion is DTIC they are already building the universal stage adapter for the exploration upper stage anyway and given how important a component that is for the E they should understand most of the construction and Engineering going into that part of the rocket anyway seems to me that Dynetics would understand a lot about how the SLS contract is built and what the engineering requirements for the for the rocket overall are and they could probably provide a great deal of effective oversight the responsibility needs to be given given to somebody because Boeing clearly can’t handle it. Whether it’s the 737 the Starliner or NASA’s new moon rocket Boeing clearly can’t handle any of these projects on their own if they can handle them at all. And we need to take decisive action if there is to be any hope of us returning to the Moon before the end of this decade thank you very much for watching please don’t forget to like. And subscribe and as always stay angry about.

out space

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