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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

#71

Post by [deleted] »

dylan604 wrote: post #45
dotnet00 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 severa…

Isn't it the Russian modules that keep leaking atmosphere? Maybe its time to jettison them? I honestly have no idea what the Russian modules are or what purposes are are served by them. However, that does bring to mind something I never thought about. There is talk of privatizing ISS since NASA doesn't want to continue funding it. How do you privatize something made by multiple nations? Or is that precisely why the p…

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by uristohkrat »

Animats wrote: post #54

There's no market. Private manned launches have been on Space-X's price list for years. Anybody buy one yet?

Inspiration 4 was a private mission. Polaris is a series’s of private missions. I believe Axiom is also considered private, might be wrong on that.

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

#73

Post by dotnet00 »

dylan604 wrote: post #45
dotnet00 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 severa…

Isn't it the Russian modules that keep leaking atmosphere? Maybe its time to jettison them? I honestly have no idea what the Russian modules are or what purposes are are served by them. However, that does bring to mind something I never thought about. There is talk of privatizing ISS since NASA doesn't want to continue funding it. How do you privatize something made by multiple nations? Or is that precisely why the p…

There have been some incidents with Russian modules and spacecraft over the years demonstrating the gradual decline in their capability, but so far it hasn't been determined to br worth the effort of figuring out if the sides can even be disconnected anymore.

The talk about private space stations isn't really about privatizing the existing ISS. There are private trips to there every once in a while (required to be led by any former astronaut at the ISS though).

Besides that maybe you're thinking of Axiom's space station, which is intended to have modules docking to the American side of the station and gradually building off of it until their modules can handle being independent, at which point the ISS modules would be disconnected and deorbited, leaving their private space station on its own.

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

#74

Post by adolph »

FireBeyond wrote: post #36
adolph wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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

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

Boeing announced in May 2016 that their first crewed flight would be delayed to 2018 due to issues related to Starliner's Atlas V N22 launch vehicle. [0]

Starliner's problem isn't delays--it is a failed program. The only thing delayed is terminating the program and selling those high value but soon to depreciate Atlas V boosts to something worth doing. (7 of 29 remaining Atlas V (as of 2022) are allocated to Starliner. To get past 7 requires a whole new integration/test/certification for Starliner.)

Each contract required four successful demonstrations to achieve human rating for the system: pad abort, uncrewed orbital test, launch abort, and crewed orbital test. [0]

  Test                   Boeing [1]          SpaceX [2]
  pad abort              2019-11-04      2015-05-06
  uncrewed orbital test  2022-05-19      2019-03-08
  launch abort           N/A             2020-01-19
  crewed orbital         N/A             2020-08-02
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Program

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2

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

#75

Post by shellfishgene »

inglor_cz wrote: post #58
Laremere wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the effects of the invasion was that the Antares rocket stopped being viable. Antares used a pair of Russian RD-181 engines. The first stage was built in Ukraine (Dnipro). This sort of cooperation is basically dead.

I've been wondering, with the rocket science knowledge the Ukraine has, are they not capable of designing and building mid-rage missiles for their military, or is that just a much longer process?

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

#76

Post by bradyd »

legitster wrote: post #63
krisoft wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, a few month delay on a brand new space vehicle isn't "OMG, Boeing failed!" The hubub is not about the few more months of delay just anounced. The starliner and the dragon 2 started development around the same time to deliver about the same thing. The first crewed dragon 2 launched in 16 November 2020. It is not about the months of delay, but the years.

SpaceX is the only organization in the industry that prioritizes speed. For the regulators and the other players, they are all pretty happy to do things at their own pace and speed.

But the regulators have certified SpaceX's Crew Dragon.

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

#77

Post by FireBeyond »

ktpecot wrote: post #66
FireBeyond wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be nice to see some of that skepticism applied to Crew-1, when it slipped 4 years, but Ars treated SpaceX announcements as gospel truth. Hell, the launch article for Crew-1 ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/weather-permitting-t... ) literally did not once mention that that launch was delayed, let alone 3 separate year+ delays. Just about SpaceX "saving" NASA from "wandering around in the wilderness with…

Given that starliner is still not operational and the situation in Russia the description seems pretty on point to me?

So does, "Announced in 2012 to be launched in November 2016, the program suffered numerous delays until four years after the initial launch date, it's taking off..."

> and the situation in Russia

Presumably you mean the Ukraine invasion, which had zero bearing on this, given that it happened nearly a year and a half later...

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

#78

Post by ceejayoz »

Retric wrote: post #70
ceejayoz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second mission had to be added due to the first's failures. ( https://spacenews.com/boeing-to-fly-second-starliner-uncrewe... ) It wasn't originally in the schedule. (SpaceX, by comparison, flew crew on their second test flight.) And again, Starliner's third attempt is now indefinitely delayed for a rebuild of critical systems. "largely delays in funding not just the actual program" is simply not the truth.

SpaceX’s dragon had test failures slow things doing remember this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scz-fFZT-dI > is simply not the truth. Funding represents significantly more than 4 years of delays, just using their initial announcement date let alone when funding was actually provided. That’s just simple math.

> SpaceX’s dragon had test failures

There's a major difference between internal tests intended to discover problems and "we think everything's good, NASA, can we send it to the ISS?" tests intended to show everything's working.

> Funding represents significantly more than 4 years of delays

Sure. Add on additional years worth of failed tests on the actual production vehicle and you get the $1.1B in the article. Boe-OFT was now nearly four years ago.

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

#79

Post by gpm »

shellfishgene wrote: post #75
inglor_cz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the effects of the invasion was that the Antares rocket stopped being viable. Antares used a pair of Russian RD-181 engines. The first stage was built in Ukraine (Dnipro). This sort of cooperation is basically dead.

I've been wondering, with the rocket science knowledge the Ukraine has, are they not capable of designing and building mid-rage missiles for their military, or is that just a much longer process?

They have been doing this

https://www.eurasiantimes.com/denied-atacms-ukraine-says-it-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/09/its-simple-and...

Surface to air: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/07/24/the-ukraini...

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

#80

Post by evandale »

housemusicfan wrote: post #35
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, unles…

The haters don't want to admit space flight is really really hard and Elon, excuse my language, fucking nailed it.

Richard Branson is a billionaire who tried to do spaceflight long before Elon and Virgin Galactic hasn't launched anything useful (before SpaceX) as far as I know. If someone thinks a suborbital flight is impressive I highly recommend them to play KSP and find out how easy that is compared to getting into orbit.

edit: they have reached orbit; I stopped following Virgin after it became clear they can't do the job https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LauncherOne

So many people want to erroneously believe Elon is some child with the mental capacity of a 3 year old with access to billions of dollars because they don't want to like him or give him credit for anything.

It takes more than a pile of money to run a successful space program and how nobody can see that by now is beyond me.

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