• @[email protected]
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    9026 days ago

    That’s the correct decision. Last time NASA decided to send back astronauts on a known-damaged spacecraft, they all died.
    Better to be safe.

  • @eestileib
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    8626 days ago

    And the MBA vampires have bled another formerly great company to death.

    • @[email protected]
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      -626 days ago

      Honestly the entire space industry has been a corrupt money grab from the start.

      It’s why Johnson even pushed a moon landing to Kennedy, to get pork for his constituents.

      • @Peppycito
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        1026 days ago

        It was an inspired way to sell missile design to the public.

    • @[email protected]
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      1526 days ago

      On the press conference call, Bill Nelson said he talked to the new Boeing CEO, who said they’re committed to continuing with the program.

        • @[email protected]
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          925 days ago

          “We fucked up and we’re not sure how we’re going to fix it”.

          If they said that, I would go buy Boeing stock immediately.

          • @[email protected]
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            225 days ago

            the national train company here said this, along with a list of 10 things they’re specifically doing to improve service, and i had forgotten how it feels to actually feel positive about a company statement for once

    • @[email protected]
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      926 days ago

      Manned spacecraft, anyway. I will eat my hat if the next Starliner test flight isn’t unmanned.

  • @CaptDust
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    26 days ago

    I feel so bad for these astronauts, I can’t imagine being told I’d be stuck through the new year. and this puts the dragon crew half staffed for the work they needed to do. Boeing seriously fucked up here.

    Glad they can come home on a safe craft, but there needs to be repercussions and answers.

    • @brown567
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      2226 days ago

      I’d probably be upset to have my return delayed that much, but I’m sure there are people who would be ecstatic that their space trip got extended. Hopefully those astronauts are the latter XD

      • @[email protected]
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        325 days ago

        Astronauts knowingly take on risk, but the risk is usually of a sudden and fiery/icy death.

        To know that one’s bone density and god knows what else will be negatively impacted due to upstream fuckups must really suck.

  • threelonmusketeersM
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    2126 days ago

    Welp, that’s that. I wonder how this will affect future flights. Will NASA require an extra test flight prior to Crew-1? If so, Boeing will be one rocket short, as all of the Atlas Vs have already been allocated.

    • Diplomjodler
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      1526 days ago

      No way Starliner flies again. This whole thing has been a gigantic fiasco from day one. I hope they pull the plug and spend the money on programs with a future.

      • @Jumuta
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        326 days ago

        boeing’s spending the money not nasa, it’s a fixed price contract

      • @CaptDust
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        -126 days ago

        I disagree, they have so much time and money investment into starliner, it has to fly again. They can’t throw out 15 years of development.

          • @CaptDust
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            26 days ago

            It’s not a usual cost-plus contract, to my knowledge, the government hasn’t funded it beyond the initial half billion. Boeing is taking a bath on this capsule development, needs the crew contracts to recoup, and that’s why I don’t believe they will abandon it.

              • threelonmusketeersM
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                225 days ago

                I don’t know. Part of me feels a bit of glee that Boeing is having to foot the bill for their own incompetence.

        • @[email protected]
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          1326 days ago

          They definitely should throw away 15 years worth of development if they are unable to deliver. Any more money spent would be wasted

        • @[email protected]
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          726 days ago

          They’re more than $1.5 billion in hole on this contract, but they must be doing some math on how many future contracts they might miss out on if they back out.

        • @[email protected]
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          426 days ago

          Don’t throw good money after bad (or the sunk-cost fallacy).

          Though it’s not like all that development is lost. They retain all they’ve learned and developed. Just costs a bit to store the data.

  • The Picard Maneuver
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    1726 days ago

    I wonder if it’s a nightmare or a dream come true for them.

    I mean it’s obviously terrifying, but they’re astronauts in space for an extended period of time who will have a unique story to tell when they come home. If they write books about it, I’d be interested to read them.

      • @[email protected]
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        1026 days ago

        It does, but I expect there is decent camaraderie among astronauts and they know who caused this.

      • @[email protected]
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        425 days ago

        Surviving the first and perhaps only crewed Starliner flight, getting a full ISS rotation and a flight home on Dragon feels like a bit of justice for crew who put their careers on hold for Boeing. The Starliner assignments got the short straw and hard to imagine other astronauts not being sympathetic.

  • @[email protected]
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    1726 days ago

    The helium leaks on the RCS thrusters were a known problem before the Crew Flight Test, and Boeing gave assurances to NASA that the leaks wouldn’t be problematic. What were those assurances based on? I don’t know much about spaceflight, but it seems crazy to me that CFT was allowed to launch when there was a known issue that could impact docking and undocking with the ISS, and possibly deprive the capsule of a backup means of orienting for deorbit.

    A person has to wonder - did Boeing’s desire for a commercial success, at any point, impact their assessments of Starliner’s safety? Is it possible that running this project at a set price was an impediment to proper, timely, and safe development?

    • @Jumuta
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      1126 days ago

      nah the problem wasn’t the helium leaks, it’s overheating of the thrusters

  • @[email protected]
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    626 days ago

    What are they doing about incompatibility issues between Boeing spacesuits and dragon capsules?

    • astrsk
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      226 days ago

      Probably why it’s going to take till Feb— they’ll adapt it and launch the adapted capsule to retrieve them.

      • @[email protected]
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        726 days ago

        Nope, the February return flight is an expedition that was already planned long before this issue, the only change is that they’re going to launch with 2 crew members instead of the usual four, so they can bring back the 2 stranded by Boeing.

        NASA says they aren’t considering any emergency missions, but it sounds that if they thought it was necessary they could ask spaceX for another launch.

        Push comes to shove, they could fit everything into the spaceX capsule that’s parked at the ISS, but they don’t really want to go over 4 occupancy unless it’s an emergency.

        • astrsk
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          726 days ago

          So they’ll send up 2 extra dragon suits for the stranded astronauts to use? I thought space suits are so highly customized and tailored to each astronaut that they can’t just do that.

          • @[email protected]
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            1426 days ago

            At the press conference, NASA confirmed that there is a spare suit on the ISS that fits, and Dragon will bring up another one. Assessment was that this still presented risk, but less risk than the astronauts taking the Starliner back to earth.

          • @[email protected]
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            526 days ago

            They just need to get close enough. There’s already one spare Dragon IVA suit on ISS that’s a close enough fit to work. They’ll send up another. During training, the crews actually use suits that were customized for other people while they wait for their new ones.