Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#11

Post by insane_dreamer » Tue, May 07, 2024, 2:51 AM UTC

> If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020.

How is it that SpaceX was able to accomplish the same thing in a fraction of the time, esp considering Boeing has been building aircraft for a century? Granted it's not the same thing as rockets, but still, with all the aerospace engineering talent that Boeing must already have had ... Did SpaceX poach all of Boeing/Airbus' best people?

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#12

Post by renewiltord » Tue, May 07, 2024, 2:55 AM UTC

The funny thing is that Elon Musk promised us Mars and gave us orbit for cheaper than ever before. Boeing in its various incarnations has promised us orbit and given us nothing for just as expensive as before. Some people like to optimize for delta between promise and delivery. I think I like it when just delivery is optimized. There's really only one space company in the US today, and perhaps if there were other people like Elon Musk around there'd be more.

Instead, the experts who have been doing this for half a century suck balls while the newcomer from a software engineering background who didn't stay in his lane made it.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#13

Post by nolongerthere » Tue, May 07, 2024, 2:58 AM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #11

> If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since…

Likely sunk cost fallacy. Space flight is still new enough that starting from scratch lets you use all the lessons that were learned from your predecessors while not getting stuck in the muck of institutional inertia. And you still aren't that far behind the more experienced competition. Unlike say, a commodity like candles that doesn't have anything new to discover, and the existing manufactures cannot be out innovated.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#14

Post by irjustin » Tue, May 07, 2024, 2:58 AM UTC

Glad this is happening. ULA is a good launch provider even if they are insanely expensive vs SpaceX.

Yes, Elon is right, SpaceX did it cheaper, faster everything that you'd dream of. But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket.

That said - I do wish Boeing+ULA would get it's act together. Because nearly 80%+ cost to the tax payer for hedging is quite expensive. US Gov definitely enables this.

I've said contradicting statements. My conclusion is, this is overall net positive even if pricy.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#15

Post by ipnon » Tue, May 07, 2024, 2:59 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #12

The funny thing is that Elon Musk promised us Mars and gave us orbit for cheaper than ever before. Boeing in its various incarnations has promised us orbit and given us nothing for just as expensive as before. Some people like to optimize for delta between promise and delivery. I think I like it when just delivery is optimized. There's really only one space company in the US today, and perhaps if there were other peo…

I'd rather hate Elon Musk on Mars than love Boeing on Earth.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#16

Post by schiffern » Tue, May 07, 2024, 3:04 AM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #14

Glad this is happening. ULA is a good launch provider even if they are insanely expensive vs SpaceX. Yes, Elon is right, SpaceX did it cheaper, faster everything that you'd dream of. But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket. That said - I do wish Boeing+ULA would get it's act toget…

>But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket.

Funny how it used to be SpaceX making this argument, and ULA was fighting tooth-and-nail for "sole source" as cheaper. :-\

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA

I don't see SpaceX pushing to discontinue ULA's contract, so it would seem they're at least treating ULA better than ULA treated them.

Competition is good, I agree.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#17

Post by Jtsummers » Tue, May 07, 2024, 3:13 AM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #11

> If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since…

Boeing is a grossly inefficient organization, have been for a while. It's not just them, this is typical of the defense contractor side of the house for companies like them. It doesn't help that they're getting the high publicity contracts, lots of low publicity contracts that go about as well and are run about as poorly.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#18

Post by irjustin » Tue, May 07, 2024, 3:15 AM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #11

> If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since…

> Did SpaceX poach all of Boeing/Airbus' best people?

Definitely part of the reason. They did poach a lot of good people.

SpaceX vs Gov Contractors been the war cry of those who believe Private >> Contractors. Everything Elon has done for SpaceX has been absolutely relentless, and razor focused on the goal. This includes being willing to sacrifice individual's life-balance for the mission. Combine all that with a willingness to do fast iteration and break things where it's "safe" to do so. You've got the ability to disrupt an industry/ecosystem that's gotten lazy and fat over time.

To be clear, Private >> Contractors is not 100% nor is the flip. There are too many examples of both directions either working or not working.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#19

Post by necheffa » Tue, May 07, 2024, 3:16 AM UTC

nolongerthere wrote: post #13

insane_dreamer wrote: post #11

> If all goes to plan, Boeing will be able to finally certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion NASA astronaut taxi contract. That contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was also granted a contract under that program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since…

Likely sunk cost fallacy. Space flight is still new enough that starting from scratch lets you use all the lessons that were learned from your predecessors while not getting stuck in the muck of institutional inertia. And you still aren't that far behind the more experienced competition. Unlike say, a commodity like candles that doesn't have anything new to discover, and the existing manufactures cannot be out innova…

Not to mention the bureaucracy tax; Boeing has had far more time to let the bureaucracy metastasize.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#20

Post by dotnet00 » Tue, May 07, 2024, 3:32 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #12

The funny thing is that Elon Musk promised us Mars and gave us orbit for cheaper than ever before. Boeing in its various incarnations has promised us orbit and given us nothing for just as expensive as before. Some people like to optimize for delta between promise and delivery. I think I like it when just delivery is optimized. There's really only one space company in the US today, and perhaps if there were other peo…

SpaceX may be by far the most prominent of the new space companies, but many smaller companies, especially Rocketlab are also punching above their weight relative to the old guard.

The issue was that all the incentives for Boeing were to stagnate. The government would happily sign blank checks to them as long as they kept saying "space is hard, it can't be made cheaper, outsiders wouldn't understand". It took SpaceX coming around and showing results to prove that while space is hard, it isn't as difficult and slow as old space would have liked us to continue believing.