@@lostpony4885 nah. Boeing problem is much worse. their employee aren't it used to be since Boeing focusing on fulfilling diversity quotas instead if people with genuine skills.
@@buenaventuralosgrandes9266 Ah yeah, I'm sure it's because I've hired some people with brown skin and not because they've gotten used to the government constantly giving them money to deliver nothing for the past 20 years... That's not racist at all...
Know then, that it is the year 10191. The known universe is ruled by the Padisha Emperor Shaddam IV, and Boeing's Starliner is almost ready for lift-off.
Oh wait, we have some news coming in from the Starliner side... oh... Ok... It seems as though Starliner has had a software failure, and so we will go back to the processing facility to fix its 42069th failure in a row.
Oh that's no good, Boeing finally got their software issues sorted out, but then the Butlerian Jihad happened and now they're not allowed to use computers anymore and they have to start over with Mentats!
Let's remember one thing here...Boeing is contracted with a government agency. The govt routinely requires contractors to alter the laws of physics. This is always very difficult and expensive. Any delays and cost overruns are 100% the fault of the govt.
@@MrPLC999 I fail to see how Boing's software problems were caused by the government, SpaceX delivered earlier at HALF THE PRICE per seat, there is no excuse for Boing here
lol GOOD ONE ! But really we all know by now anything that is run or funded by the government is DOOMED to be over budget and late. And may not work at all when done.
@@MrPLC999 The difference is, Boeing (and ULA etc.) have got fat over the years by taking 'Cost Plus' government contracts, where any overruns and delays are paid for by the government. They've never had any reason to work faster, because however long they took, they'd still get paid. The Commercial Crew program (and the Commercial Cargo program) are straight-forward contracts, the Government pays $X million to Boeing and SpaceX (I think it's about $4M to Boeing, and $2.5M to SpaceX), for six flights to the space station. If they go over budget, tough, they have to pay out of their own pocket. Boeing aren't used to working like this, SpaceX are.
The situation is unlikely to arise under normal operations and average astronauts will instinctively know how to respond within half a second. Therefore there is no need to include information regarding the update and its autonomous actions in the manual.
At this point, the steampunk cannon-launcher and space-bullet ship from Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” looks like a pretty convincing alternative to Starliner.
Yes, accelerating a pod in a cannon to more than 11 kilometers/second while keeping the crew alive sounds much more plausible than Starliner launching within the next 12 months.
Well Scott, here's the thing. In 2009, when these contracts were first being moved around, SpaceX had just successfully gotten their first rocket into orbit *ever* the year before. The first commercial Dragon flight didn't occur until 2012. Out of all the competitors, Boeing was the only one that had built space-rated vehicles (mostly by gobbling up the competitors in the years since Apollo and Shuttle). So, yeah, it's totally fair to heap scorn on them. Yes, spaceflight is hard. Yes, things can go wrong. But for the absurd amount of money being put into Boeing, and to be caught up on trivial matters (at first), you truly have to just shake your head in disbelief. I mean, Boeing is getting paid 60% for each Starliner seat, and it hasn't even carried a single astronaut while we have THREE Dragons in rotation! I know that came out as SpaceX fanboy stuff, but the thing is that Boeing started with all the chips in their favor (not to mention their partial ownership of ULA), and they still fumbled.
From first looking at the everyday astronaut video and seeing how you get into the starliner it looked at best outdated compared with dragon And they had so much more money and experience
I know Boeing did a lot of good stuff back then. But this is 2021, space just can't stuck in the past. I watched a video talk about Boeing is being control by money people not engineer for long time. I know they just got a new engineer CEO, but this is really sad for a company that was famous for their innovation and technology. For NASA/US tax payer, it just makes no sense to pay the extra money for the same service while SpaceX can do the same and better. If Boeing still can't get the Starliner to work in 2022, NASA should just cut the lost and cancel the contract.
@@captainahab5522 and the complete and utter inability to adapt. NONE of the old skool rocket builders have even one design in the works that incorporates reusable parts. It remains to be seen if Starliner will be reusable, or "refurbishable", in latter case the refurbishment will be so expensive NASA could buy two dragons instead, which ARE reusable in the sense that they are servicable like a car or bus.
"It didn't reach the space station mostly due to software problems" - Boeing brought this on themselves by letting so many senior engineers go a few years back. So many companies consider us "expensive" and reap the rewards when they prefer juniors over us. I have so little sympathy for them. Same with the MAX debacle.
It's common in a lot of industries. The funny thing is that the same managers who think an engineer fresh out of school can do the job just as well as an experienced engineer will claim that a business manager just out of school couldn't do their job as well because they don't have the same experience. Basically they can see the value of experience in doing their role but not others.
Next up in the queue for that foot-shooting ride is Rolls Royce... how can this lesson never be learned? especially at RR of all places too. Not sure having senior engineers around would have avoided the MAX disaster given everything else we learned, but this isn't really the place for that one. How much autonomy does Boeing's space divison have?
As someone studying software engineer I have to agree with you. I have done 2 years now and its a math teacher that talked about pointers because we have absolutely no classes above basic poo programming in java. Thankfully im autodidact and i can tell you the future of software engeneer aint looking great by the few people i managed to find who know how a computer actually works. Most of the software classes are about purely theoretically building a set of documentation and i was teamed with people who did nothing more the hello world in java
@@peter4210 I have a software engineering degree ( with other bits ) - you will learn more in the first three months of a proper job than the entire thing, if you're determined to do a good job. Or you can bluff your way through endless contracts & not learn anything at all, if you like.
The year is 2178. The colony cluster known as Side 7 has declared independence against the Earth's Federation. While this is unfolding, Boeing announces its first succesful flight of Starliner. In other news, the Soyus program has once again, renewed its contract for space ferrying for another 100 years.
R7 family is embodiment "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". It launched first ICBM, first satellite, first human to space, and afer all those years, it's still flying.
@@cola98765 It really is. The Russians realised that it was indeed cheaper (And arguably safer) to keep on upgrading the R7 family instead of experimenting with new rockets so they just kept using it and fixed any issues it presented. Now it is one of the safest methods of going into space.
Fuck that shit lunch an ops cluster and take back the colony and eliminate the perpetrator and stope all parts and file and place blocked around the colony😤
@@dkbros1592 Too late, the unthinkable has happened and the rebels killed an entire settlement inside an Earth allied colony. We don't have many details, but astronomers say the dead colony is moving in an alarming fashion towards Earth. In other news Boeing's first official launch for Starliner ended in tragedy this evening when...
Boeing has received nearly $2 Billion more in funding from NASA yet it seems increasingly likely that Crew Dragon will finish all 6 of it's operational crew flights before Boeing finishes a single one.
Check out the USAF KC-46 Pegasus (KC-135 replacement) debacle. They could have gone with a proven working solution from Airbus, but instead they went with Boeing who now can't seem to deliver an aerial refueling plane capable of aerial refueling.
@@JonMartinYXD i talked with a few law makers that pushed for boeing to get the contract. They said if they could go back, they would tell boeing to kick rocks. As soon as they got the contract, they pulled their military production facility out of our state. Just kept it there for leverage, and went back on their word.
Correction here; the crewed Dream Chaser did not at any point ever have or need anything like the Shooting Star module that the current Cargo DC does. It was an all in one lifting body design. Shooting Star is really needed to expand the cargo capabilities of DC so that it can carry external payloads as well as increase internal pressurized cargo, the solar arrays and propulsion is nice bonus.
Capsule: I'm going back to the shop; not feeling up to flying today. Atlas booster: I have better things to do than wait around for you with the meter running. Hop in Lucy, I'll give ya a lift.
Seeing as we're all getting Beatles references with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamond". The Altas gave Lucy a Ticket To Ride. We're all Dreamchaser Believers. While Boeing need Help! And Starliner might be launched When its 64. Someone else can link the Blue Meanies (from Yellow Submarine) to a certain litigious space company.
Boeing is finding out that keeping your experienced engineering staff around, and listening to them, is more important than moving a headquarters full of MBAs to Chicago.
Are Boeing funnelling cash into the back engineering program of recovered ET craft, that are all in private aerospace ( Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman etc)
Boeing got picked because of their history, at the time SpaceX was the new upstart and hadn't really done anything yet. In 2021 SpaceX have firmly established themselves as one of the premier space launch companies. Still would have love to see Dream Chaser launch with a crew, it is a cool concept. Maybe after they've got some cargo launches it can be revisted.
Yes, there really couldn't have been any other choices. Dream Chaser was a risky design from a new company with no track record, and NASA had to be shy of any flying lander that used heat tiles. SpaceX was a new company, and their design was moderately innovative (risky) with the service module and LES capabilities all built into the capsule. Boeing had the overall safe design, from a big "reliable" contractor who knew how to get things done. For the second, SpaceX was as risky as NASA could get.
Another fun fact, the original plan for long duration Shuttle missions included remaining docked to the then Space Station Freedom for stays of up to three months using a combination of the Extended Duration Orbiter pallets, throttling down the fuel cells to minimum, along with other conservation measures, and supplementing from SSF itself (like what happened eventually with ISS). The big question marks at the time were the ability of the commander and co-pilot to fly the orbiter after so long in space as well as the safety margin in maintaining enough tire pressure, and the potential for a debris or micrometeoroid impact that could cause serious damage to the vehicle.
Unfortunately the only EDO unit constructed was destroyed during the Columbia disaster, and since the Shuttle program is going to be retired, NASA decided not to rebuild it
I just love that Boeing tried to throw shade at Space X just before the first Starliner launch, justifying the higher costs on better safety checks and higher quality operation. Then their first Starliner launch went sideways and now they are delayed again. Of course, Boeing isn't footing the bills for these mistakes, the US government is, giving Boeing no real incentive for actually putting the extra cost towards the supposed better safety checks and higher quality service.
CC is fixed price; Boeing doesn't get paid for a flight unless it accomplishes a particular milestone, and Boeing took a $400 million ($440 million?) charge to cover the reflight. That's assuming Boeing doesn't manage to sweet-talk NASA out of additional funds. They did it earlier in the program, but it seems less likely given that SpaceX is flying and NASA is unhappy with Boeing.
Got a big haha from that myself. It would be even funnier if they people he called that would fully take on board what he just called them. Kinda old school but still, it paints a pretty picture.
"Just in case one of the other proposers wanted to fly their spacecraft on top of something that had already been declared incredibly dangerous." Man, a burn that good could carry a crewed capsule into orbit all by itself.
@@citizenblue My "meanness" comes from such disappointment in them. This rocket is a mess honestly. The whole SLS program has eaten up billions and really nothing done, while Space X announces something new and the following year it seems to be flying. I wonder what Space X could have accomplished if they'd been given those billions? I swear, Boeing needs to replace their management team or something? It's bad when the Russians joked that they'd be happy to help them... Now that was savage. ;-)
@@louissivo9660 Oh, I absolutely agree! Not to mention the corporate ethos of the upper management. Boeing's days are numbered in my opinion, and I think it all began when they absorbed McDonnell Douglas and the engineering took a backseat to profit. SpaceX is revolutionizing the launch industry, but more than that they are inspiring future engineers, technicians, and startups to break the mold and solve problems we previously thought unsolvable. The reaper is at the door of legacy aerospace.
They can do it given 1 year time duration. 100 mil usd. They will then extend the date by 10 years and require 900 mil usd more. Citing harm to their work force and placing in jeopardy the re election of local politicians. Of course they will get this.
It's amazing how SpaceX has absolutely dominated the big defense contractors in the space game. It really sheds a light on how bloated and bureaucratic the whole thing is..
Yes. I'm not a SpaceX fanboy, I'm an "actually innovating while also being much more cost effective" fanboy. Every aerospace company should be learning lessons and following suit (intelligently, not haphazardly like some are), and they have the benefit of it being a much lower risk investment than when SpaceX did it because SpaceX already proved it can be done. My hope is not that SpaceX does "all the rockets" from now on, but that all rocket companies go the reusable route (as much as feasible) and drop costs accordingly.
@@cokeforever you’ve got a point on the state-run part. I hate to be so pessimistic, but SLS might’ve been flying by now if NASA hadn’t shovled as much money into SpaceX.
…NASA funds nothing… NASA has no money.. It is CONGRESS who ‘FUNDS’ projects… it is CONGRESS who has the money…CONGRESS doles out the cash…CONGRESS controls the horizontal, they control the vertical, they can change the focus from a soft blur to crystal… uh.. yeah, sorry, I got carried away to the outer limits of the situation….
To be fair, we're talking about 2012 Blue Origin here, which I would argue actually was good. The rocket design that would've launched that Biconic is excellent, and probably would've been flying reusably by today had they gotten the contract and gone that direction. Frankly, they should've built it anyway.
@@jef_3006 Arguably, Blue Origin is still a good company, just with a tarnished reputation that may not reflect the skill or capabilities of its engineers at the moment. It only seems to reflect the majority of the Company’s management and legal divisions which, frankly, never laid a hand on a wrench their entire lives. Arguably they’ve only laid hands on green paper.
It's amazing to me that the other vendors received far less funding and one of those is flying... and Boeing with the never-ending bucket of money is not. It says so much.
Imagine the disappointment of being a rookie astronaut being assigned to your first flight crew, only to find out it’s the Starliner, and it’s a coin toss whether you’ll be getting to space or collecting social security first.
SN has been keeping this in mind. They accepted the cargo contract and will be launching dream chaser, but they mention that they are developing a crewed version every chance they get.
I have been told that Dream Chaser is 75-80% ready for human crew use. So hopefully in near future we can start seeing NASA switch to it. But the government is really friendly to Boeing so who knows.
@@remeg.3295 Whatever happened to the proposal for Dream Chaser to be Europe's own dedicated launch vehicle for their astronauts to reach space so ESA didn't have to rely on American and Russian launch services?
Never going to happen, Shuttle had been canned on the grounds of, cost, short space duration capability, but most importantly safety. NASA's own calculations had odds of 1-120 for catastrophic failure with total loss of crew.... that's just not acceptable rate even for astronauts who accept space is dangerous. And compare that to NASA's 1-270 minimum failure rate for Crew Dragon, though importantly not necessarily catastrophic with one abort system and two emergency landing systems. The fact that Dream Chaser has no abort system and is launched within the fairings, it's more than likely the risks are just as high as the shuttles were. Also before anyone says the Dream Chaser can be configured without fairings, mounted and abort off the top off a vehicle as seen in some renderings published... that's complete nonsense and NASA have dismissed that idea and as they themselves spent years at design stage calculating if that could work for the shuttle, and concluded it wouldn't..
Fly safe... or don't fly at all. Yeah, I just listened to the media briefing. It was cringeful, and I felt sorry for the Boeing and NASA representatives taking the heat. At the same time, I feel kind of amazed and almost proud of the level of savviness among the media representatives. A lot more eyes are watching nowadays, and a lot more closely than ever before.
Boeing needs to be broken up into separate companies for commercial airliners, military, and space. Each of the smaller companies could actually focus on its core mission, rather than having a group of bean counters ruin everything they touch.
Its not Boeings size. Its that they built in Seattle but moved all the decision makers to Chicago. (This was before the SC plant). Ask yourself what company seperates the decision makers from the engineers. So of course they began to farm out the engineering.
The real thing that needs to happen is to publically out the corporate weasels who have ruined this once proud engineering giant. Hiding behind the name Boeing has allowed these slime balls undeserved anonymity. Publically reveal the personal profit they've reaped in greedy manipulation. Total up the waste in public monies and the cost in human life and lay it squarely at their named doorsteps.
The TKS would be pretty cool too. Easily the spacecraft with the largest pressurized volume ever flown next to the space shuttle (since it's basically a space station module mated with an engine to let it go places). It could have been adapted to interplanetary missions, etc. You could use it to build a space station in lunar or martian orbit by just sending more TKS and docking them to build up a growing facility. If you had a space station made with like 10 used TKS there'd be so much redundancy that if one sprung a leak or something you could just dump the broken module.
@@NozomuYume Totally agree, I have always loved the TKS/VA combo and wish it got more love, heck, Chelomei at OKB-52 deserved much love all around if you ask me. Many promising projects that never got their chance to shine, when they sure would have...
@@peteconrad2077 Elon can't do that to Bezos, though, because Bezos is always on the phone with his own and Tory Bruno's attorneys 24/7. Fortunately, he can still hear Elon laughing at him in his mind, as well as feel Bruno's hot breath on his face.
One rumour is that they were counting on that. Boeing would kind of pretend to work on Starliner, then SpaceX would fail, then Boeing would be in a strong position to ask NASA for more time and money. Basically just using the program to transfer taxpayer dollars to shareholders. But when SpaceX succeeded Boeing needed to actually build something, quickly and on budget.
I had to listen to that three times - the delivery was flawless. Seconds earlier I was commenting "Awesome, let's cobble together the crummiest components of the last 40 years." Scott crushed my snark by a mile.
Fergy, the pilot of the last Space Shuttle landing, couldn't hack the wait and safety of Starliner. We now have 2 Astronauts transferred to Spacex Dragon and more will come. I guess Fergy would have given his right leg to fly Dragon too. They are choosing young, new Astronauts to get real space experience so the older guys are back seated. However, who wants to bet that Artemis achieves it's full program with Congress holding the money.
Dreamchaser had the right mix of X-38 heritage, dissimilar redundancy, huge cross-range and rapid reuse. At the time it was thought that SpaceX and SNC were the higher risk options despite both programs being farther along than Starliner.... look where that got us. We need to stop rewarding Boeing's poor performance across many of their product lines.
Actually, at the time of the selection in 2014, Dream Chaser was at least a year behind either SpaceX or Boeing due to not only less funding during the development rounds, but also because SNC decided to forgo the hybrid rocket system they were working on and instead go with another form of engines for RCS, orbital maneuvering, and launch abort.
@@samsonsoturian6013 Yes there is. Boeing has wasted trillions of tax dollars by now on what SpaceX has been able to do most of without any significant funding. Boeing needs to be made a complete laughing stock of at this point, along with the senators who keep giving money to their personal friends by calling it "budgets".
NASA is partly to blame for Boeing being drugged into poor performance, delays, and waste. Cost Plus is huge incentive for unlimited payout during delay. Reach your goals and the gravy-train stops.
glad someone else sees this. Boeing has gotten fat at the trough of public spending. They could sit back and milk the system. Now they've got serious competition, and it seems the only way they can remain viable is by lobbying congress.
@@1224chrisng Good point and you are correct... technically... but though the contract was not officially cost-plus, anytime they went crying to NASA for more funding, they got it. Boeing was always the "favored child" and Space X the orphan beggar.
@@1224chrisngYou are right, Starliner is not cost-plus, but for a company like Boeing cost-plus is a hard habit to quit, it is quite well embedded in their corporate system.
At this point Orion genuinely would’ve done a better job getting crew to ISS instead of Starliner and even Dragon in the 2010’s I wish we got to keep Dreamchaser in 2014
So you think that a capsule designed to fly on a $1.5 billion dollar per launch rocket would have been a better idea? Seats on dragon are $55million each. Seats on Orion would be $300million each.
@@avgjoe5969 Orion could have been given a LEO optimized service module (similar to Starliner) Ideally I’d want Starliner to fly between 2011-2020 to fill in the gap between Shuttle and Dragon/Dreamchaser, it would’ve been the best possible spacecraft to do it Boeing had more than enough money to do it and would’ve worked amazingly, they’ve come too late into the game though, there are 2 spacecraft better than it
I could see (assuming StarLiner ever gets to that point, I have my doubts ATM) that fifth StarLiner seat going to a researcher for a private company that is willing to have a staffer in the ISS for the six month commitment. Other than that, space tourism will be closer to the Crew Dragon model: entire capsule for several days in a dedicated flight. I'm not quite as pessimistic about the Sierra Nevada spaceplane. Once you've flown the cargo version, you've worked out a lot of the bugs on the concept already, and then you can build and fly a couple of crew versions as unmanned cargo vessels if needed to help get it crew-rated. Would this work?
The fifth seat is a Boeing scam to squeeze more money out of a launch that is already fully funded, whereby the extra $90m falls straight through to the bottom line.
@@thePronto Exactly. Scott alluded to it in the video but really the 5th seat will end up being used by NASA after Boeing gets its Senators to purchase the seat.
Long term I'm wondering if it might be superseded by advances in spaceplane technology. By the mid 2030's we could be seeing SSTO designs taking off from runways instead of launch pads. I know a lot of people have doubts that SSTO spaceplanes will ever be economic, but I'm optimistic that there will be advantages in turnaround time and longevity, not to mention crew comfort. A space industry where spaceplanes are used for passengers and light cargo, and something like starship for the heavy stuff could be an option.
'Crewed Demo Flight' ... somehow I got reminded of Crew Dragon Demo-2, originally meant to stay just 2 weeks, but extended to 2 months, and SpaceX just went, "Okay, no problem! We can do it!" And they just went and did it.
One Boeing test-crew member bailed out some time ago ("personal reasons"), and now two more got re-located. I wouldn't be surprised if the few remaining candidates would also find a way to get of the death trap. I hope so for their safety.
Easy to say now. But at the time that would mean NASA bet it all on two unproven companies with innovative unproven designs. Boeing's rot hadn't started showing, they were seen as the reliable company with a long track record of being able to deliver cutting edge aircraft, and had an aerospace division. Unlike Starliner, Dragon incorporates the LES and service module functions all into one reusable spacecraft. It's more likely that if Gerst had chosen Sierra Nevada it would have been instead of SpaceX.
@@donjones4719 You're absolutely correct. This is why NASA really wanted Congress to fully fund all three designs. (except there was no chance that Gerst would drop SpaceX. They were the only American company actually building an operating a pressurized space capsule at all at the time).
@@donjones4719 I disagree. It was chosen simply because it was a “nobody was fired for buying IBM” type decision. Commercial Crew and CRS/COTS was about pushing American capabilities forward, not treading water. We chose a less risky option expecting SpaceX to fall way behind Boeing and we got the exact opposite. Sierra Nevada was the obvious right choice then, and even more so in hindsight.
It'd be nice, but its the Military contractor game. You don't get paid to succeed at anything, because the money ends at that point. You get paid to fail, but look close to succeeding. That way you can continue to get paid indefinitely while producing either nothing, or something so flawed that it takes a Billion (or two) to fix.
8:55 would have been funny to see the distinction between the first class and economy on spacecraft. First Class - seated in the front, abilty to return to Earth in case of failure. Economy - seated at the back, make sure your life insurance covers this.
"I don't think private passengers would stay on the station for 6 months" I mean I'd be down for a 6mo stint on the station. Would be the ultimate view for a work from "home" type thing :D Granted the cost may be a killer
Well, the more fundamental problem is, the station couldn't support the private passenger for 6 months. Its life support sustains a max of 7 crew long-term.
9:00 Scott, allow for minor addition. The normal use of the VA crew capsule was intended to be with the TKS. This never happened with a crewed version although there were plans to fly it in connection with the Salut 6 project. However the scheme with two crew capsules was an uncrewed test configuration to fly two VAs at one Proton. The schemes was utilized several times. Indeed, during one test the lower capsule died with the rocket and the upper one which was equipped with the safety system survived and was once again utilized after the failure. NB: The TKS was the VA’s service and cargo module. They never flew together. Instead the TKS was transversed into space station modules. The latest still flying with the ISS.
12:30 OK, here's a fun "what if" project. Design a reentry capsule to be carried uncrewed in the Shuttle bay and left attached to the ISS as an emergency return vehicle. (AKA escape pod.) A lot less life support capacity, RCS fuel, no toilet, etc, should lighten it considerably. Simple batteries. 2 small or 1 large? Fun permutations.
I feel like they were so slow in developing the Starliner that the technology used in it became so outdated, making them lose the motivation to actually finish it. Nowadays, everyone is developing their own reusable rockets that it makes it feel like the Starliner's a rocket made from decades ago.
I've seen it posited that they're actually intentionally dragging their heels and fumbling things, in order to get out of a contract that might (thanks to their mismanagement) make more financial sense to drop entirely than keep trying to complete.
If I remember right, when the Shuttles were flying, at least one extra Soyuz was always docked to the station as a lifeboat. That way crew carried up by the Shuttle could remain there for long durations after the Shuttle had departed. When I was working on what was then called Space Station Freedom, emergency escape was never even considered. Even if the Starliner concept is superior to all the alternatives, even Dream Chaser, that in no way excuses Boeing's extremely poor performance in executing it. At what point do you conclude, "Yeah, Starliner was a better idea, but Boeing just can not make it work and a different vessel that works is better than one that doesn't?" I will grant you, we are not there yet but the initial contracts were for six flights. SpaceX will have accomplished at least five of theirs before Boeing launches their first crew. if there are any more delays, SpaceX will have fulfilled their entire contract and be working on the next before Boeing puts a man in orbit. The purpose of having two independent space launch providers was so that the United States would not be lose its manned space capability should something happen to ground one of them. I don't think anybody ever expected the wisdom of that philosophy to be so starkly demonstrated before one of the providers ever became operational. In a worst case scenario, when does NASA finally cut Boeing loose and rebid the contract?
Boeing winning the contract was the worst case scenario. Or to put it in numbers, in the same amount of time since Starliner won the Competition in 2010, NASA Went from not launching anyone to landing humans on the moon. Boeing's merger with McDonnell-Douglas was the end of that company's good years.
Boeing's problem: non-engineers have too much power. A counter-example is the genius of Google: Larry Page wrote in their original by-laws that engineers had more decision power than accountants or even high level managers.
@@andersjjensen Starliner is only going to the ISS, not the moon. Also, SLS must launch in the next 8 months (otherwise it will need new SRBs). I'm 99% confident SLS will launch before the end of March, so well before Starliner (mid-2022).
@@jshepard152 Indeed, I am 99% confident of that conclusion. This is one of several bets I have (with myself) about space launches. (The closest & longest-running (since 2018) of these is SLS v Starship. I think SLS will launch first, but for quite a while it looked like I'd be wrong.)
Honestly, with all the delays and issues Boeing is having with Starliner, and the fact that Crew Dragon is already an operational spacecraft, I can see NASA just pulling the plug. Why waste additional resources on this, that can then be diverted to the Artemis program? That's just my take on it.
While I understand the shuttle was dangerous, I don't understand why they didn't/haven't maintained the shuttle orbiter launch system (main tank and SRB) (well they have sort of as it is the SLS now). But the orbiter itself weighed in at 240,000 lbs/110,000 kg and had an additional payload weight of 54,000 lbs/24,000 kg to LEO. Just build a simple bottom platform with the standard orbiter engines and small fuel tanks (just like on the orbiter) and place cargo on the platform with a covering fairing. We could take a huge volume of cargo or probably two ISS segments or one long one up to LEO. The diameter of the shuttle was almost 18 meters across, not including wing span and 37 meters long. You could fly that up to orbit, shed the faring, take platform with cargo to the ISS, dock, use the ISS arm to unlink cargo/new ISS segments from the platform and attach to the ISS and then just undock and deorbit the platform. Heck, you could probably use it to get the Artimis Gateway to LEO, unlink from the platform and then with engines attached to the Artimis Gateway segment, fire it off to the moon. You would only need to speed it up by about 8000 mph from the 17,000 mph LEO speed. Now we are stuck with the SLS with much smaller payload area and mass restriction sitting on top of the rocket. You could use the old shuttle rocket system to send a lot of Artimis stuff to the moon including landers, habitats, rovers, power units using a base platform in leu of the orbiter attached to the side of the rocket.
SLS is the rocket out of STS parts. With a fairing maybe 8 meters in diameter and 19 meters tall, its much wider than Space Shuttle payload bay. Anything bigger you're going to want to assemble in space. Also, the STS external tank was not small.
Hey Scott itd be cool if you discussed Buran's suitability for crew ferry like you did the Shuttle. Would Buran's improvements have overcome those issues or no?
Good point, after all they did actually build a few AND successfully fly one on the first try! Pretty good show for the time; likely a combo of experienced engineers, tightly focused managers and good fortune. Boeing should be modeling THAT! BTW- Buran program approach was sadly underappreciated at the time, too bad it collapsed like it's hanger in the chaos of `90s USSR dissolution. Probably would have evolved (alongside it's Energia boosters) into a serious competition with our earlier Shuttle program, and pushed the spacecraft technologies race to the current level sooner. Maybe even a better ISS built sooner? Imagine two competing Shuttle designs assembling SkyLab sized modules launched by Energia in cargo only mode!
To me the real question is:”when do we pull the plug”? There will come a time when other technology passes Starliner and the only sensible course will be to move on.
Gotta say, Scott. I love your analyses better that any other. You have a well studied and coherent method of explaining what is current at NASA. I always look forward to your videos on anything Space related. Thank You.
"Making it clear that they could put any spacecraft on top of that in case any of the other competitors/proposers wanted to fly on something that had already been declared incredibly dangerous." 😁
At the rate they are going Boeing seems to be headed in the same direction as General Motors and IBM - giant enterprises that once dominated their industries but now seen their best years gone by.
If you have never worked in the space industry, you just cannot imagine how slow it is. none of the incentives are to be speedy, and all of the penalties are. Unless you have exhaustive private funding like SpaceX does, you are forced into a snail crawl by endless risk mitigation measures. Turns out the safest launch is the one that is scrubbed, and if all your policies are to maximize safety...
Absolutely. To a lesser extent that even applies to most major companies. VW or GM engineers never got a chance to develop a new electric car from scratch, or even innovate on electric car technology in a meaningful way. Tesla and SpaceX are unusual places to work because the boss expects his engineers and engineering teams to fail - if they don't fail occasionally, they aren't innovating enough. In an onstage interview he once said if an engineer never fails they get fired. On the other hand, there are limits, of course. Yes, it's not fair to compare a publicly traded stock company to a private one, the external pressures on management are very different and those are the pressures transmitted down thru the company. The same goes for NASA - although the external pressures are different, the results are to an extent similar.
So you're saying Boeing doesn't have any money saved up somewhere? That the company is constantly hanging by the thread on the brink of bankrupcy? Boeing is a huge freaking corporation and if they wanted to, they could spend some of their own money to speed up development, which they've fallen behind schedule on due to their own incompetence. But of course they won't do that, because they have to maximize the amount of money they milk out of the government. Basically do everything as slow as possible but just fast enough so that the government will keep funding your neverending project that is years late from the original schedule. If you have a deadline, you're supposed to deliver before hitting that deadline. Hire more people, hire better people, fire the bad people. Things can be done incredibly fast if you throw enough people at the problem. But if your only objective is to maximize the amount of money the government pays you, you just run a skeleton crew and keep missing deadlines and the government will pay you billions of extra to finish the project at some point.
Starliner shows how great the CCDev program was in selecting multiple launch providers (and originally they had Ares/Orion as a NASA based backup system if the CCDev program failed).
I should add - without CCDev then NASA would have likely stuck with "the usual suspects" (Boeing, Lockheed, etc) and we'd likely have been limited to Orion on top of "something". Ares-1 was never going to be human rated (a Shuttle booster derived rocket with a capule on top), so likely an Atlas-V - and we've seen how often Orion has flown. And after they cancelled Constellation, they might have sought a LEO crew delivery system from "the usual suspects" (leaving Orion for the deep space stuff) and then we'd have still got Starliner - and its delays. So we'd still be buying seats of the Russians. we should also remember when COTS and CCDev contracts were being given out there were many politicans who didn't think outsourced commercial suppliers would be able to provide the orbital capabilities and NASA should stick with in-house services provided through contractors across the many NASA centers across the country.
It's hard to believe you are talking about the same company that designed and successfully flew the biggest aircraft of it's time within 3 years (and built the entire factory to build these planes along the way) !
It may be the same corporate logo, but its not the same company. Companies are made of people and those people are long gone, replaced by bean counters.
I love the dreamchaser, it was my favorite spacecraft even before a certain family member became involved in the final hardware design. Sure Starship has taken that title now, but I'm still heavily invested in it's success