not sure wether Boeing would lose it's door when on space
Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
51–60 of 172 posts
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#52Earlier 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…
“ Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight” Not true! The challenges are different but space is in a sense simpler since the reliability requirements for space are not as stringent.
That's an odd assertion. Sure, we have a somewhat higher tolerance for risk for unmanned spaceflights, but we don't have particularly high requirements for unmanned drones either. But the reliability requirements for something like Starliner are ridiculously high and that's why it's taken a decade for the first manned flight.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#53> 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…
>> How is it that SpaceX was able to accomplish the same thing in a fraction of the time Because they already had Dragon sending cargo to the ISS at the start of the commercial crew program. They used the money to upgrade and get man rated. Boeing started their capsule from scratch. This still doesn't explain all of it, but nobody else has mentioned their head start.
Boeing has been building stuff for space since the early days of the Apollo program, including the Space Shuttle and big slabs of the ISS. If anything they should have had a head start on anything human rated.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#54Glad 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…
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 don't actually understand why this is, as it's not like SpaceX is relying on any sort of just extremely well guarded secrets
It's good management.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
“ Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight” Not true! The challenges are different but space is in a sense simpler since the reliability requirements for space are not as stringent.
That's an odd assertion. Sure, we have a somewhat higher tolerance for risk for unmanned spaceflights, but we don't have particularly high requirements for unmanned drones either. But the reliability requirements for something like Starliner are ridiculously high and that's why it's taken a decade for the first manned flight.
A starliner is not nearly as reliable as a Boeing 777. Just look at what happened to the space shuttle. That’s also why Russians had reliable launch vehicles but not so reliable jetliners.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an odd assertion. Sure, we have a somewhat higher tolerance for risk for unmanned spaceflights, but we don't have particularly high requirements for unmanned drones either. But the reliability requirements for something like Starliner are ridiculously high and that's why it's taken a decade for the first manned flight.
A starliner is not nearly as reliable as a Boeing 777. Just look at what happened to the space shuttle. That’s also why Russians had reliable launch vehicles but not so reliable jetliners.
Those "unreliable" jetliners still complete orders of magnitude more flights between crashes than "reliable" launch vehicles. Angara A5, Russia's latest and greatest, had 1 failure out of 4 launches so far.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX was a threat to ULA, and ULA knew it. But is ULA any sort of threat to SpaceX? If I were Musk, I'd want them sticking around just to make me look good.
ULA (a largely anticompetitive merger of Boeing and Lockheed for those who don't know) was actively and patronizingly taunting SpaceX during their efforts at reuse, making comments along the lines of 'We tried reuse. The economics just don't work out. Good luck learning what we already did.' He (Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA) seemed to be under the impression that reuse was only possible Space Shuttle style, which was them…
At least Bruno knows his stuff, unlike Calhoun. Believing (too long) in the conventional industry standards is to me a more forgiveable sin compared to throwing standards overboard willy nilly in the name of profit. ULA has been reliable in what they've been providing, and Vulcan looks to be a pretty capable platform - albeit it could be seen only as a bit of a plan B for the US launch industry in case Starship doesn't work out.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
A starliner is not nearly as reliable as a Boeing 777. Just look at what happened to the space shuttle. That’s also why Russians had reliable launch vehicles but not so reliable jetliners.
Those "unreliable" jetliners still complete orders of magnitude more flights between crashes than "reliable" launch vehicles. Angara A5, Russia's latest and greatest, had 1 failure out of 4 launches so far.
You're completely correct, but I think using the Angara A5 is a bit misleading. That's still in testing, and the one failure was because the exact part they were testing (the upper stage system) failed - it's more akin to something like the Starship, even if nowhere near as ambitious. It'd be more reasonable to compare something like the Soyuz-U, which has successfully sent hundreds of people to the ISS. Yet its overall failure rate is still dramatically higher than an airplane with 765 successful launches and 22 failures.
If airplanes had the same failure rates as even the most reliable rockets in existence, we'd be seeing tens to hundreds of crashes per day. Of course it's not because rockets are "allowed" to fail more regularly, but because this is the best we can currently manage.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX was a threat to ULA, and ULA knew it. But is ULA any sort of threat to SpaceX? If I were Musk, I'd want them sticking around just to make me look good.
ULA (a largely anticompetitive merger of Boeing and Lockheed for those who don't know) was actively and patronizingly taunting SpaceX during their efforts at reuse, making comments along the lines of 'We tried reuse. The economics just don't work out. Good luck learning what we already did.' He (Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA) seemed to be under the impression that reuse was only possible Space Shuttle style, which was them…
The refurbishment did present a problem for SpaceX, iirc.
It’s just that Elon seems to have a knack for managing Manufacturing Engineers and got Merlin production and refurb down to not just science, but magic.
Re: Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed
#60Glad 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…
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…
SpaceX’s key insight was that the hardest part about building rockets was components manufacturing and attacked that problem aggressively, bringing in as much in-house as possible vs. outsourcing to a nationwide supply chain.
And there is no real secret to a lot of their manufacturing methods either. They just attacked hard problems aggressively with really smart people and clear leadership.