Haha, I'm guessing you don't work in the space industry. Frankly if something you work on gets to space at all you count yourself fortunate. My first job was at a defense contractor working on a big rocket. A senior engineer on our team had a picture of the Indiana Jones warehouse on the wall in his office, rows and rows of boxes. I asked him why, he said it's a reminder to not get too stressed about work - 9 out of 10 projects will never fly.
Things are changing especially in the new space corners of the industry, but for big projects requiring political will I think it's still the same.
Out of curiosity, were you working on one of the Ares rockets?
That is unless you work on a ballistic missile
Getting to space SEVEN times off one poweplant/project is nothing short of incredible.
Sure, if you ignore the 20+ year old Atlas V that actually launched it...
That means about 10 years of R&D since they got the initial contracts and then about half a decade of production for the flight articles and then a wind-down of a couple years and a skeleton crew to make the last few flights.
A 15-20 year project that sends dozens of people to space for the last years of the ISS's lifetime is not going to be a disappointment for 95% of the people who worked on this.
Huh? My understanding was that something unique about the falcon is the capability of multiple reuses, in contrast to previous missions that were one and done uses. What past experience in the history of spaceflight might someone be referring to where seven reuses registers as a disappointment?
Exactly.
Just to elaborate for your parent, the Atlas V which currently flies Starliner uses an RD-180 engine that's manufactured in Russia. ULA is no longer able to procure any more such engines, and a rocket with those engines are no longer legally allowed to fly DoD payloads. Which prompted ULA to retire Atlas V in favor of Vulcan.
I think someone from ULA or Boeing (I forget which) recently said that they've begun the process of certifying Starliner on Vulcan, although I'll have to go back and make sure I remember exactly what was said.