I'm fascinated about starliner strictly from a project management perspective. This is such a comprehensive failure from top to bottom between the delays, test failures, and hand waved requirements yet there still seems to be a contingent of boosters from both leadership and the customer. Usually I'm the guy who gets called in to rescue a spiraling project and if I was in aerospace, I dont even know where I would begin here....
You see, there is this barrel, and it is full of pork. You work for a guy who wants that pork. He says: Go pick up some of the pork, cut a chunk off for yourself, and bring the rest to me. You do that every day. You both have a nice steady supply of pork.
Some other person, who isn't you, and isn't your boss, or your boss's boss would like it if the barrel got into space. It doesn't, but that's okay because they have no power over you or your boss. Not to mention that both you and your boss both have some pork, so you're both happy whether or not the barrel goes into space.
There is no problem here to solve.
That's why you can't solve the problem. There isn't one. Everyone directly involved is very happy. You can't "fix" happy people.
That bsd analysis. There isnt a magical contract fairy that creates infinite contracts for every company.
Yes there are more fixed price contracts, but if you fuck up like Starliner you are less likely to get another one.
And even if you could get it. Boeing peadership has clearly stated they are basically not really interested in that anymore. The have lost billions on fixed price contracts in space and military.
Boeing has not been able to get much new from NASA. Their moon lander was basically embaracing. They are in the nee private station buissness much.
One SLS gets finally mercy killed they will not be a prime contractor anymore.
In a pre-SpaceX world, there pretty much was no one else they could lose the next contract to. I think a lot of Boeing still lives in a world where they have a good reputation to milk.
This would make sense if the money was paid upfront.
It wasn't. As of right now, Boeing is massively in the hole on the project. The only way they get paid if they successfully complete the development program and then fly the 6 operational flights.
Boeing is too-big-to-fail in both civilian air travel and military procurement. They know they don’t have to give a shit, because the Federal government will always give them a slap on the wrist and another chance. They’ve literally forgotten how to compete deliver a working product on schedule, because for generations nobody has required them to do so.
As much as I think Boeing screwed up, the title is a clickbait:
> NASA is giving Boeing another four days, extending Wilmore and Williams' mission onboard the ISS from June 14 to no earlier than June 18, though it's unclear whether the leaks are to blame for the delay.
No, no one have conclusively say that Starliner is stuck on ISS because of helium leak
Could that be due to saving face? I poked around for more information and the best I could find was that they're going to be using at least some of the extended time to evaluate it for safety, though it was cleared for emergency evacuation (though I'm not sure what that means in space).
I dunno. I do agree this is entirely clickbait. The author makes a couple implications but fails to make an argument or even really connect their observations and conclusions.
I'm no expert, but I'd assume "cleared for emergency evacuation in space" means "if the alternative is imminent, certain death - this option is better".
That seems clear? Are you perhaps reading that as a literal command 'have faith in this process'? I believe their point is that you should have (or lose) faith in regulations as the constraint on industry, as opposed to companies which are viewed as having no restraint.
I don't entirely agree with that viewpoint, but they aren't saying anything inherently contradictory
I'm reading it as naivity. You trust companies when you see evidence you should, and you stop trusting them when you shouldn't. Trusting a regulatory process leads you to bad decisions.
The good news is that if the regulations haven't been stringent enough to protect people, we can always increase them and also hold regulators that fail to do their jobs accountable.
Nah there needs to be trust in engineering or review principles and leadership to do the right thing under ambiguity within a company above and beyond regulations. Codes and laws don’t move fast enough for innovation and invention. And take building codes for example, they keep homes safe but you can build a lemon of a house that passes inspection. It can also have terrible architectural layout. That doesn’t mean you need more codes or inspectors.
In highly regulated industries there’s a revolving door issue where private employees join government, write the specifications, then return to private industry at a higher level.
But yeah in this case I agree regulators and company controls should have a pause or mitigation plan before running at risk. Guess we’ll see over the next few days.
> You should never have faith in a company. You should have faith in the regulatory process that constrains that company.
I agree, but I think the need for this points to a pretty glaring level of brokenness in capitalism.
(I'm also assuming by your second "should" that there's an implicit "in an ideal world" prefix, since I really do not have much faith in the regulatory process that constrains Boeing.)
i dont think we have any examples of that working out. In a utopian world it would, but then again, in such a world, is it needed?
I think we need some much much stronger basic laws, like anti lying, anti fraud etc (but where crimes does NOT pay), and then POSSIBLY(not sure, havent thought that much about it) some form of mechanism to force companies to answer questions about their products/services/conduct
they have been doing fraud. but why wont you allow it to be done in a more proper way? its like when EU creates a law that specifies how fast you are allowed to vacuum clean your house. it is retarded. They put a cap on the power a vacuum cleaner can draw, in their infinite stupidity. How about instead, if you absolutely must, mandate efficiency? Their rationale is "if they make it efficient, then they dont need the power draw", so how about mandate the efficiency? but no, they dont.
Also, government oversight and involvement has ONLY gone up, and with it, corruption aswell. The more government you have, the more it will be corrupted. It is a natural law that you cannot deviate from. What we need is a very very small but razer sharp and enforced set of rules. If a company knowingly frauds, they must be punished so severely that it will make ALL board members crap their pants at the thought of even an accusation of fraud even being made. EVERYONE that can be proved to have been involved would be punished so severely they never see daylight again, except 10 seconds before the firing squad (which starts by aiming at the feet, and then work their way up).
I consider a company lying to be fraud. Boeing should be publicly stating what their quality controls and engineering standards are, and when someone then is found to act improperly, the punishment should come down with a force currently unthinkable.
what I dont want, is a giant "im here to help" government (that we already have) that will without question be corrupted and uglier than tolkiens orcs
What's the strategy for getting the astronauts back? Do they jettison the Starliner and dock a different recovery vehicle? Are those on stand-by ready to go?
Good News: There's no real risk to them remaining on ISS at this point, short of some major incident on the ISS itself which required immediate evacuation.
Less good:
Even if Boeing had a spare Starliner (they don't), they don't have a spare rocket to put it on.
Even if Boeing had a spare fully stacked Starliner + Rocket, I'm not sure anyone (even Boeing) would trust their process to be agile enough to launch a recovery mission any time soon.
So that leaves Russia's Soyuz and SpaceX's Crew Dragon.
Using Soyuz would be a major political headache, aside from anything else. It'd require scrapping the next planned Soyuz mission - it may take several months to get that ready. I believe they have to (and would) have to send it up manned.
Using Crew Dragon may be possible, No idea on where SpaceX is as with having refurbished/ready to go capsules on hand, but they have enough launch cadence that it may be possible.
Space Suits then become a problem - they're specific to each launch vehicle, and customised for each wearer. So lead times there become an issue.
>It'd require scrapping the next planned Soyuz mission - it may take several months to get that ready. I believe they have to (and would) have to send it up manned.
Soyuz can be launched to the ISS with no crew. The Russians sent up a Soyuz with no crew a few years ago when the Soyuz they used to get up there stared leaking.
Polaris Dawn is supposed to go up next month, and while that mission isn’t going to the station, that capsule has been there multiple times, so I doubt it would need much modification.
For those unaware (like me), Polaris Dawn is a planned private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX and using the Crew Dragon capsule, scheduled to launch on July 12 (according to Wikipedia).
Worst case, they could always use the other capsule that's docked to the ISS right now to get back.
Though that would leave the current crew stranded up there until a replacement spacecraft can be sent. That takes several months.
This has happened before. The Soyuz docked to the ISS in Dec 2022 was damaged by a micrometeorite strike and was deemed unsafe, leaving that crew essentially stuck up there until a new Soyuz was sent back up in Feb 2023. (The damaged Soyuz was later remotely flown back empty.)
The space suits are custom fit, but if two astronauts are about the same height, I'd imagine you could make it fit and have it be safe if maybe uncomfortable. Worst case, you could always just not wear a space suit for the trip home. You only need the suit in the case where the capsule depressurizes but still survives reentry. To my knowledge this has only ever happened once. If they really need to leave the space station and there are available seats, this seems like a no brainer. It would be like evacuating from a tsunami in a car that didn't have seatbelts.
A certain leak rate is expected. Helium is a very small atom, and as such is used for leak testing of systems all the time. It is very good at finding gaps in a system.
Obviously the leaks here are a lot more serious. My experience of significant leaks in spacecraft propulsion would lead me to believe that there are welding issues. It can be very difficult to weld some of the materials used in these system, adding to the fact that they are all bound to be very thin walled. Cracks in welds can be hard to find, although I would expect every weld in a system like this to be X-ray inspected, and maybe also penetrant tested.
On the projects I have seen with issues like this, the main culprit has been steps in a procedure being skipped. Inspections signed off despite not being performed. I would highly doubt that this is the case here though, even with Boeings recent track record. Human spaceflight is treated different.
> It can be very difficult to weld some of the materials used in these systems.
Yes, lots of dissimilar metals welded together, using TIG, inertial/friction, electron beam, and probably other welding techniques.
>Cracks in welds can be hard to find, although I would expect every weld in a system like this to be X-ray inspected, and maybe also penetrant tested.
Indeed they are, and not just the welds. Any fracture critical component should have 100% nondestructive testing performed. This includes radiographic, liquid penetrant, helium leak test, etc., often all of the above. Like you, I would also be surprised if there were a single component or subsystem that was not subjected to these tests
All of that granted, isn't this stuff tested on the ground? I guess vibration from the launch must have cracked the welds or something, but I'd have thought that if this were a concern that the parts would have been tested in a vibration chamber.
It will have been tested extensively on ground. They will have identified leaks that are unreported in the media and there are those that have been reported.
I have no idea what went so wrong in this instance though. I am looking forward to reading some sort of report if it ever becomes available. Will be keeping an eye on the NASA Lessons Learned Library (https://llis.nasa.gov/).
Unfortunately, several hundred boeing product users didn't get the opportunity to come back.
After the numerous launch scrubs, this one way ticket to the ISS was already a distinct possiblity. Maybe boeing won't be able to bring these astronauts back either.
From a wider persoective, this really highlights why human space travel should be minimized. Outside of teenage boy spaceman fantasy and various government's desire to start shooting people in space, there is very little reason.
