Couldn't find a (separate) thread on Boeing's Starliner. Anyway, their launch today was scrubbed due to technical glitches. This is totally normal in spaceflight. Launches are scrubbed all the time for various reasons. What isn't normal is the amount of fuck ups Boeing has made in the last several years in both commercial flight and spaceflight. One wonders what the hell NASA is thinking these days.
None, so far. NASA only has to pay up once Boeing gets the thing working and sending crews into space.
I guess you couldn't find a tweet. NASA has funded Boeing about 5 billion to date as part of the commercial crew program. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner
Nah, I was going off of a discussion by NASA fans on FB that's populated by folks who actually work for NASA. Note that the contract NASA awarded to Boeing required Boeing to get the thing flying a couple of years ago. Boeing hasn't met the terms of the contract, so it's entirely possible that they've not been paid the full amount (or at all). This comment by a reporter, and ex-NASA employee, indicates that Boeing is currently eating the costs for this particular fuck up.
Hope so. Doesn't make sense NASA gave them billions in 2014. I think they were given a contract for that amount. I think you're right. Before that, NASA awarded money for working on a design to propose. But that was 500 million.
Remember, however, that NASA is the hapless puppets of Congress and the White House. If Nixon hadn't fucked around with NASA's plans, we'd have had a bunch more Apollo missions while simultaneously working the kinks out of the shuttle program so that spaceflight would be as routine as air travel was. If you adjust for inflation, NASA's budget has been static since the 60s. In 1969, the US military budget was $85 billion. That works out to $667 billion today. In 2020, the US spent $778 billion on defense (though the actual total was probably higher due to certain things being pushed off the books for that year). NASA's budget was $22.6 billion. In 1968, NASA's budget was about $3 billion before inflation. And they didn't have nearly as much things to worry about as they do today.
I hate to put too much stock in cosmetics/style but the interior of the Boeing capsule looks like a throwback to the Mercury days. I was blown away by the sleek appearance of the SpaceX interior. It looks like something out of Kubrick movie. I'm sure Boeing had their reasons for going in that direction. If they were trying to emphasize proven technology over "new and improved" (but not necessarily proven) that would make sense on paper, but Musk&Co. have been eating their lunch on this project every step of the way.
NASA reassigns 2 astronauts from Boeing's Starliner to SpaceX's Crew Dragon I think it safe to say that Boening's not going anywhere for awhile.
Boeing at one time was run by their engineers. I'm sure when the bean counters took over they promised that Boeing would do things "more quickly and efficiently."
Interestingly, car guys have the idea that automotive design became shite when the bean counters took over car companies in the 70s.
Maybe, maybe not? NASA Safety Panel Questions Boeing Starliner’s Readiness for Crewed Demo Yeah, there's some phrases you don't want to hear in there. You know, because in times past they are often followed by ones like, "Roger, Challenger, go with throttle up." And "We appear to have lost contact with the space shuttle Columbia." I really hope we've learned from history but...
From the way this reads, it’s probably dead. https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1664363135162019842?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ
Boeing Calls Off Its First Crewed Starliner Flight Due to Major Safety Issues Honestly, the surviving Apollo engineers and Boeing workers need to show up to the C-suite with their tools, get a bunch of suits in headlocks, at which point, the conversation needs to go a little something like Bogey in "The Maltese Falcon." "In my right-front pocket, I've got a ball-peen hammer, I'm going to take the hammer out and start asking you questions. Any time I get an answer from you that I don't like, I'm going to hit you in the head with a hammer. You got that?" I bet shit would change real fast. I mean, my god, if somebody hadn't been checking on details before they put a crew in there, we could have had another Apollo One fire!
Jesus. The U.S. already has a means to get people in low earth orbit thanks to SpaceX (cuckoo bananas Elon Musk aside). Time to cut ties with Boeing. Starliner is turning out to be the 747 MAX 8 of space travel.
Boeing’s Starliner Program Reaches Staggering $1.1 Billion in Losses Oh, and Boeing has to eat that, not NASA. In fact, the thing is turning into such a money pit that folks are starting to worry it could drag the rest of the company down with it.
