Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 172 posts

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#161

Post by Laremere »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #131
Laremere wrote: post #124

For anyone who doesn't follow rocket launches: Launch scrubs happen /constantly/. It happens to everyone, and a single scrub is not a sign of problems with a program. If it takes multiple scrubs with months of delays before it finally launches, then it'll be another thing to add on to Starliner's list of difficulties fulfilling their contract with NASA. However a scrub or two is business as usual.

Did you read the article? It wasn’t a weather scrub. It was a faulty valve that ULA usually fixes by doing the hardware equivalent of turning it off and turning it back on again.

I did. I didn't say it was a weather scrub.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#162

Post by adolph »

tw04 wrote: post #22
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 don’t think that’s really a fair assessment. Yes Space-X has had the most launches and gets the most press, but the US has a very healthy launch industry. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/top-us-launch-compan...

> the US has a very healthy launch industry.

What would a healthy launch industry look like? I don't think that 2022 article necessarily describes one. There is the long bet that won (SpaceX, reuse), the dino (ULA), a NZ transplant still mostly launching outside the US (RocketLab), some hopeful looking startups and always over the horizon Blue Origin.

This is a much better situation than the EU caught between the unpalatable antique (Soyuz) and the sailboat waiting for a cargo (Ariane 6).

However, it doesn't seem as healthy as the Chinese launch industry, which seems to have many providers launching and iterating with differentiated designs [0], bread-and-butter heavy launches from Long Marches (48 in 2023) [1] and continued work with the Tiangong space station [2]. It doesn't quite compute for me that commies don't have everything under proletarian central control, but they sure seem to be letting a hundred flowers bloom for now.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_space_program#List_of_...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Long_March_launches_(2...

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

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#163

Post by numpad0 »

Laremere wrote: post #124

For anyone who doesn't follow rocket launches: Launch scrubs happen /constantly/. It happens to everyone, and a single scrub is not a sign of problems with a program. If it takes multiple scrubs with months of delays before it finally launches, then it'll be another thing to add on to Starliner's list of difficulties fulfilling their contract with NASA. However a scrub or two is business as usual.

As an occasional launch livestream watcher since F9 still had rectangular engine mount, I'd say the real probability of a launch is about 25% for ANY vehicle except for Soyuz from Baikonur and Falcon 9. Everything else could scrub with 24h+ delays at easily 75% chance.

Could be wayward boats and planes, Hydrogen leaks, onboard self diagnostic failure, false hydrogen leak alarms, unstable wireless telemetry connection, upper atmospheric winds and all kinds of weather, frozen plumbings, computers passing out, automatic cutoff due to anomalous vibration at T-1s, anything.

With Soyuz scrubs and failure probabilities finally creeping up, the only vehicle in the world that likely lift off on first try is Falcon 9. Anything else could pause at T-45s and recycle from T-2 hours for couple times, then go all the way to T-0s, and then delay by a week. That's just how most of these things work.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#164

Post by tim333 »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #49
somenameforme wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. They even managed to get through COVID unscathed. The main danger of relying on a single provider is them taking advantage of that position and charging unreasonable rates, exactly like Boeing/Lockheed have been doing for decades (two compa…

I think it's because SpaceX is more influenced by engineering/design/cost than their competitors. Other companies, like Toyota, have intermittently focused mostly on engineering/design/cost, but they went back to their old habits after gaining market dominance instead of using their position to push the market forward in some other way. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28...

I'm not sure I get the 'intermittently' thing? They always seem to have been much the same, maybe with more emphasis on reliability and customer satisfaction rather than flashiness than some of their competitors. They also seem to stick to making good cars rather than doing mergers and acquisitions unlike say GM or VW.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#165

Post by tim333 »

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…

I know a lot of people here hate Musk but he's actually pretty good at the rocket stuff. If you see him going around being interviewed on Everyday Astronaut he knows the design and trade offs of every part. I doubt you'd see that with Boeing management. It's a bit of a shame he's shifted to ranting on Twitter/X.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#166

Post by jvanderbot »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #115
jvanderbot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing is definitely in on it, but let's be clear, the gov as a consumer was not really asking for 100 launches a year, and was not in the business of paying for the change necessary to completely reinvent lift as a service. So why wouldn't they just keep charging what they were charging, and building what they always did. There just wasn't an appetite for risk and reinvention, at least not enough to bring it down an…

> So why wouldn't they just keep charging what they were charging, and building what they always did. So that they can keep up with any eventual newcomers?

IIRC, large primes have limited IRAD funding for the most part - in some cases fixed %, so to do research you have to charge more to the Gov. That's just plain a "cost saving measure" enacted by government.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#167

Post by kenny11 »

trothamel wrote: post #141
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> capsule isn't responsible for the booster's valve issues But Boeing is responsible for putting it on an Atlas V. Why?! There are fewer than thirty of them left! Why aren’t they practicing on a modern stack? I’ll eat my words if Starliner can rapidly transition to another booster. But given its track record in software alone, I’m incredibly sceptical.

Dissimilar Redundancy. Say the Falcon 9 suffers an in-flight failure. The last time that happened, there was a stand-down for quite some time, and I suspect that there would be a similar amount of time before people could be flown on it, even if I'd think Starlinks could resume right away. Starliner/Atlas wouldn't be affected, and so ensure the US and our allies have access to the station without getting Russia invol…

> have access to the station without getting Russia involved.

Except for the Russian engine on the Atlas V.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#168

Post by dotnet00 »

adolph wrote: post #158
dotnet00 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The diversity argument does ring slightly hollow when iirc Boeing has only made two Starliners and it only has enough rockets for the 6 missions in the contract. Basically they're set up to have one capsule in refurb while the other is at the station, and once the 6 Atlas V's are spent, someone has to cough up the money to do the stack of paperwork for crew rating the combo of Starliner and Vulcan.

> do the stack of paperwork for crew rating the combo of Starliner and Vulcan. Or/and Falcon 9! Starliner is designed for compatiblity with . . . Falcon 9, and Vulcan Centaur. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner

Putting it on Falcon 9 would not be ideal since then you're back to having a single point of failure in terms of preventing crewed launches by the US. Plus, considering that they don't exactly like SpaceX, while being half of what formed ULA...

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#169

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

tw04 wrote: post #113
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, it's not even remotely close. SpaceX had 98 launches in 2023. ULA, the closest competitor, had 3. For all of these others, considering that this article is from 2022, how many of them even still exist? Don't get me wrong, I hope SpaceX gets some stiff competition because I believe that competition breeds innovation. At the moment, however, I have no idea where that is going to come from or when it might…

So you didn't click the link? Because ULA wasn't second, rocket labs had 9 launches last year and 24 scheduled this year. As I said, the launch industry in the US is robust.

I did?

No. 1: SpaceX

No. 2: United Launch Alliance

From TFA

Even if you're right, having 1 company with 10x of the #2 is not what I would describe as healthy.

Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed

#170

Post by quartesixte »

thenaturalist wrote: post #67
somenameforme wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. They even managed to get through COVID unscathed. The main danger of relying on a single provider is them taking advantage of that position and charging unreasonable rates, exactly like Boeing/Lockheed have been doing for decades (two compa…

Most likely the same reason as for industry espionage by said countries: Conceptually designing a spacecraft and assuming certain physics properties is a long stretch away from actually manufacturing components with materials that stand up to the stress of a launch. The “secret” to reliable components which can be produced at scale is very much not generally out there.

I will say, some of the techniques that live in the brains of machinists/welders/technicians is borderline alchemy, and sometimes highly specific to the worker themselves.

Can’t really scale that. And good luck doing corporate espionage outside of physically kidnapping them.

Post reply on HN