NASA decided Saturday it’s too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule, and they’ll have to wait until next year for a ride home with SpaceX. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.
I can't imagine how much this has upended their lives. Besides that, it also screws over the two astronauts who were going to ride that Dragon capsule to the ISS.
You can bet the farm that Boeing lobbied hard for NASA to fly the two astronauts back on the Starliner. Oh, they may claim they didn't and that they're good with NASA's decision, but the real world knows that's just bullshit and spin.
Boeing may fly again, but it'd be better with some crash-test dummies for the next flight.
Space suits aren't compatible with any other spacecraft.
ReplyDeleteDesign excellence brought to you by the grandsons of the idiots who designed the CO2 adsorption cartridges for the Apollo LM and CM.
DeleteThey need to pay attention to testing and QC. Its an iterative process they just have to apply it. '
ReplyDeleteThen again they have to load software to get it to undock, if they can get that right. Anothrr area they have done poorly.
Eck!
When you build things that hold people's lives, you get them right. The first time or damn close to it. And Boeing did....once. The suits thought that quality just happened and chiseled away in their brainless greed conquers all way. Sorta of the opposite of crying wolf. Their name is mud (or Mudd) and they have a long steep hill to climb to ever create and sell a new aircraft design. They'll be flogging their legacy designs for the forseable future; they not only have lost the ability to build a risk the business new airframe, but any inclination to do so (again gutless suits).
ReplyDeleteRead this:
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/a-cycle-of-misery-the-business-of
At the best of time, with skilled engineers and a dedicated enterprise supporting them and quality, it's a crapshoot. And BoeinMcDD's shit-headed MBAs pissed that once peerless ability away. Tumbrils and guillotines for them. Or maybe a bullet and bill the shareholders and board for the cartridge.
Wonder if some electric/hybrid design will come from nowhere and replace Boeing... or if the commercial aircraft of the future will be all Airbus....
The suits should be made to take the first test rides. That should focus them.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteBook on how long 'til the ISS is abandoned, crashes ... ?
ReplyDeleteRoughly 7 years for ISS. There is a contract to SpaceX to
ReplyDeletebuild the hardware needed to de-orbit the ISS in an orderly way.
Not technically hard but a one off that must work right. It will
be based on hardware has tested.
Eck!
An 8 day tour, Boeing's equivalent of Gilligan's 3 day tour.
ReplyDeleteWondering how this works out for astronaut pay.
ReplyDelete