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Comment by dark-star | Hacker News Reader

Hard to believe that NASA sent people to the moon 60 years ago, when they can't even get basic reaction thrusters working after over 10 years of developing and building the Starliner...

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NASA is just the customer. Starliner is built by Boeing.

Boeing used to mean quality. Now it means cutting corners for the sake of stock price and dividends.

...and the other trendy word that starts with a D.

Come on, say it for everyone.

Deaths (of passengers)?

Disassembly following premeditated lithobraking induced by lackluster system architecture?

Dead whistleblowers?

Figured he was going to say 'diversity' as if that has something to do with any of boeings issues, but your D words are on the nose!

There is a reason why it says Boeing's Starliner and not NASA's

You should read more about failures than happened during Apollo program. Apollo 1, Apollo 13 being most famous, but even during Apollo 11 multiple things failed.

I am aware, but they went from Apollo 1 to Apollo 11 on the moon in like 2 years. This is now after what, 10+ years? With billions of cash and 60+ years of additional know-how and technology?

On the contrary, there's a knowledge about spaceflight that was lost because the funding dropped so low in between, and the older generation retired without having a steady flow of projects to train the new generation(s) with.

Also, with this round of space enthusiasm, everyone is trying to improve on what was done before, to make the cost of ongoing operations finally more sustainable. For example, EVA suits are built more maneuverable and agile, while at the same being more modular, repairable, and no longer custom fitted to each individual.

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