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Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

arstechnica.com

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Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#31

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

kawehjr wrote: post #18
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #5

> Because Starliner was funded by NASA through a fixed-price contract, as part of the Commercial Crew program, Boeing is responsible for any cost overruns and financial losses due to delays. Given Boeing’s history here this feels like the right kind of contract for this sort of work. Ensures all incentives are aligned

The current NASA administrator, a bureaucrat who grew up during the Bush Cost+ era, is actually opposed to fixed-price contracts because they only save a lot of taxpayer money and might not actually help us get deliverables faster.

Boeing has its own incentive to deliver quickly though in this case. The incentive is that SpaceX is absolutely eating their lunch at this game

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#32

Post by HDThoreaun »

randunel wrote: post #12
mulmen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work? Does Boeing pay a penalty if they don’t make progress?

US law allows companies to split off a subsidiary with all the liabilities and the main company to continue to function with all the assets just like before https://www.ltltalccommittee.org/ Boeing wouldn't need to pay anything.

No, that is not how bankruptcy court works. The subsidiary needs to have enough assets to pay the creditors, up to the entire value of the company.

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#33

Post by hinkley »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #29
kawehjr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current NASA administrator, a bureaucrat who grew up during the Bush Cost+ era, is actually opposed to fixed-price contracts because they only save a lot of taxpayer money and might not actually help us get deliverables faster.

There is a different perspective on that from large acquisitions around firm fixed price contracts. If you're doing some low risk building, say a 10 mile road on flat ground with known soil, replacing a previous road, that is well-known to current specs with set-in-stone requirements (no pun intended) it is easy to pitch that firm fixed price because the contractor will know exactly what to do, and there are 20 road…

You can't even get your plumber to tell you how much it's going to cost to get your toilet working smoothly again. And you want to get to the moon on a fixed budget? (Which will also require a toilet).

Software has the same problems. An unreasonable expectation of being able to predict the future (except the bits they don't want you to know about), and a lot of whining when we run into unexpected issues.

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#34

Post by adolph »

FireBeyond wrote: post #28

While there are concerns with the bidding process, I think this is a pretty big "nothing", in the grand scheme. There is some pretty horrific anti-Boeing spin. > Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. > Asked whether Starliner might be able to launch this year, Stich did not offer a concrete timetable. "…

> > Such an answer suggests that Starliner's launch on an Atlas V rocket ... may very well slip into 2024.

> I mean, a few month delay on a brand new space vehicle isn't "OMG, Boeing failed!"

Atlas V . . . is America's longest-serving active rocket. In August 2021, ULA announced that Atlas V would be retired, and all 29 remaining launches had been sold.[ As of 10 November 2022, 19 launches remain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#35

Post by housemusicfan »

FireBeyond wrote: post #28

While there are concerns with the bidding process, I think this is a pretty big "nothing", in the grand scheme. There is some pretty horrific anti-Boeing spin. > Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. > Asked whether Starliner might be able to launch this year, Stich did not offer a concrete timetable. "…

> this article just reeks of subjective opinion, more so than objective neutrality

The comments section of any Ars Starliner article is a must-read for me. These guys were devout Boeing haters and would endlessly praise SpaceX - that is, until Elon become public enemy #1 last year and they suddenly and abruptly shifted their hate and derision the other way. Not a single independent thought on that entire forum, unless you sort by most critical and painstakingly weed through the hidden comments. The articles are crafted to be red meat for their core readership. At least The Register is unashamedly a tabloid and doesn't pretend they're not. Interesting to see how they spin this.

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#36

Post by FireBeyond »

adolph wrote: post #34
FireBeyond wrote: post #28

While there are concerns with the bidding process, I think this is a pretty big "nothing", in the grand scheme. There is some pretty horrific anti-Boeing spin. > Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. > Asked whether Starliner might be able to launch this year, Stich did not offer a concrete timetable. "…

> > Such an answer suggests that Starliner's launch on an Atlas V rocket ... may very well slip into 2024. > I mean, a few month delay on a brand new space vehicle isn't "OMG, Boeing failed!" Atlas V . . . is America's longest-serving active rocket. In August 2021, ULA announced that Atlas V would be retired, and all 29 remaining launches had been sold.[ As of 10 November 2022, 19 launches remain. https://en.wikipedi…

The Atlas V has absolutely nothing to do with the launch delay.

The "brand new space vehicle" is the Starliner.

> that there were two serious issues with Starliner. One of these involved the "soft links" in the lines that connect the Starliner capsule to its parachutes, and the second problem came with hundreds of feet of P-213 glass cloth tape inside the spacecraft

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#37

Post by dotnet00 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #28

While there are concerns with the bidding process, I think this is a pretty big "nothing", in the grand scheme. There is some pretty horrific anti-Boeing spin. > Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. > Asked whether Starliner might be able to launch this year, Stich did not offer a concrete timetable. "…

Berger has a pretty good record with the estimated NETs. There have been several cases of him stating that a launch has been pushed back with a bunch of public pushback from others, only for him to turn out to have been pretty close.

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#38

Post by mattashii »

adolph wrote: post #34
FireBeyond wrote: post #28

While there are concerns with the bidding process, I think this is a pretty big "nothing", in the grand scheme. There is some pretty horrific anti-Boeing spin. > Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. > Asked whether Starliner might be able to launch this year, Stich did not offer a concrete timetable. "…

> > Such an answer suggests that Starliner's launch on an Atlas V rocket ... may very well slip into 2024. > I mean, a few month delay on a brand new space vehicle isn't "OMG, Boeing failed!" Atlas V . . . is America's longest-serving active rocket. In August 2021, ULA announced that Atlas V would be retired, and all 29 remaining launches had been sold.[ As of 10 November 2022, 19 launches remain. https://en.wikipedi…

Atlas V is indeed an old launch vehicle. Starliner, however, is a brand-new (kinda) space vehicle. It still has to pass crewed validation.

Kinda new, because it has seen 2 flights, of which 1 a mission failure (failed to insert into target orbit due to software issues, several other issues identified hours before a potential hard mission failure), and the other an uncrewed test flight.

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#39

Post by dotnet00 »

Laremere wrote: post #26
areoform wrote: post #8

This comment is your regularly scheduled reminder that they were supposed to be the safe option. The people who'd come in clutch when SpaceX failed (and it was assumed in certain quarters that SpaceX would fail to deliver on time). They were paid 2x more than what NASA paid SpaceX. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-will-pay-boeing... RIP Boeing.

This comment hits differently after the Ukraine invasion. I hadn't thought about the sheer level of diplomatic nightmare that has been avoided because Russia can't use cutting off access to the ISS as a bargaining chip.

They still can use cutting off the ISS as a bargaining chip since half the station is Russian and handles orbit raising. They actually did do that a lot early into the war, until Rogozin was replaced as head of Roscosmos by someone who took a slightly less bombastic approach of saying that Russia would quit the ISS once they have a successor station up later this decade.

What gets in the way is that the US has several replacement space station programs in the works while Russia knows very well that they almost definitely can't get a comparable replacement station up with how hollowed out their industry is.

Plus, since the start of the war, NASA has been investigating options for taking over the tasks the Russian side of the station handles with the various supply vehicles just in case.

Re: Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight

#40

Post by TheCaptain4815 »

I truly hope this is the beginning of the end for these bloated "boomer defense companies".

Palmer Lucky actually started a defense company after seeing just how inefficient and bloated those big companies were, and is already worth 10 billion! Highly recommend watching this interview he had about the future of all this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-sD2FTjSaw

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