When in 1974 the 56 day planned mission on Skylab 4 was delayed by 24 days it was a major event.
With the current debacle we are past 65 days of a planned 8 day mission. In a past world this would have been seen as a the shame with the fact in which vessel the crew returned, being a just a minor sidenote.
My belief is that the fact that they're publicly "considering" the SpaceX plan means that they've probably already decided to do that and what we're seeing in the media right now is NASA just letting everyone get used to the idea before they formally commit to it.
There are still fans of Boeing's ability to make money, no matter how bad they are at making aerospace products.
NASA is an executive agency, the President doesn’t like the head of SpaceX, and it’s an election year.
NASA is a huge fan of SpaceX. Look at the Artemis programme and the amount of technology risk concentrated with them. They’d similarly defer to SpaceX if Crew Dragon had an issue.
Biden has the authority to say that he’s not going to give Elon this gloating opportunity ahead of the election.
Biden also has the authority to make SpaceX catch a seal, strap it to a board, and make it listen to rocket noise through headphones to see if it becomes distressed.
This is real engineering, folks. By the experienced real engineers at Boeing. Not the idiots at SpaceX whose stuff keeps blowing up.
The messaging from NASA has slowly shifted from "They're returning on Starliner" to "They're returning on Starliner, and we're considering contingencies" to "We'll make a decision whether they return on Starliner or Crew Dragon".
It does kind of seem like NASA is giving Boeing as much time as they can to try to pull a rabbit out of a hat, with the understanding that if they don't deliver, that the Astronauts are going back on Crew Dragon.
The issue is that of fault handling. If the software detects a malfunction when a crew is onboard, the best option is to switch to manual control. But if a crew is not onboard, the craft should handle the failure on its own in the safest possible way.
So, what happened is that they loaded in software which expects the crew to be available. Now, obviously with thruster malfunctions already happening, they can't assume that a fault won't be detected after undocking, so they have to switch the software over to the configuration where it can no longer rely on the crew as a fallback.
I'm not trying to make the excuse that's going around about how they don't need to change the software, just the configuration. It's absurd that they need 4 weeks for this change when switching from manual to automatic fault handling should be a basic safety contingency (it'd be necessary if the crew had become incapacitated for any reason).
Someone on X was saying that NASA's definition of "flight software" includes config files. So it isn't actually the code that needs to be changed, just the config.
I think the need for 4 weeks for a config change is the requirement to test the new config in a simulator (against a long list of scenarios) and have it reviewed and approved by various engineering teams, both Boeing and NASA. Plus likely some margin added.
However, I imagine that part of becoming an astronaut means that you really have to get comfortable with trusting others to make critical, ultimately life-affecting decisions on your behalf all the time. So perhaps their mindset is more of "we trust that all the smart people on the ground are doing their best to make the safest decision for us, and we'll go with what you say".
If I were one of them stuck up there, though, I'd probably want to get on a video call with the Boeing engineers and look them in the eyes, show them pictures of my family, and ask if they are confident their vehicle will bring me home safely.
If they are doing comms like that, it's telling, they need to cut it out and focus on their real issues.
They mismanaged the space shuttle, racking up huge costs on a vehicle that put people's lives at risk, while lying to congress and everyone else about how reliable it was. Feynman's report is a good read. Here's an HN thread.
I would like to believe you, unfortunately previous events show that decisions are not driven primarily by crew safety and data on thruster performance. Politics plays heavily in most decisions.
(e.g., the Shuttle was sold to Congress as a multipurpose vehicle that could support military, scientific, and commercial missions. However, the need to gain political support led to compromises in its design, particularly the decision to make it a reusable vehicle with an orbiter that could carry large payloads, which led to safety issues. The political drive for cost-effectiveness also led to the program being underfunded, contributing to the Challenger disaster in 1986.
The 'Journey to Mars' program was designed to sustain NASA's long-term goals but lacked a clear timeline, partly due to political hesitance to commit to a specific date or strategy that might not align with subsequent administrations' priorities. The program was influenced by political leaders' desires to show progress in space exploration while avoiding the high costs and risks associated with a definitive Mars mission plan.)
Five-year-olds do not use this technique, they do what they want when they want to with no regard for their public image, which is what you are stating NASA will do.
Boeing, on the other hand, stands to suffer a lot of PR and financial damage should NASA make that decision. They have an interest in managing this window. They've been lobbying NASA and tweeted something about how confident they are in Starliner, but they appear to really be on the backfoot.
The whole point is that NASA isn't "letting people get used to the idea." It's really no skin off NASA's back if they send them home on Starliner.
Or NASA caving to outside pressure to look, relook, and look once more for any possible way to make a Starliner return possible. Likely the same pressure that called for Starliner in the first place.
So the timeline is irrelevant to embarrassment. The Crew-9 mission has been rescheduled to 24 September, a decision needs to be done way beforehand. If the decision is bring them down using SpaceX, the Starliner crew will then stay until the end of the Crew-9 mission in March.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/nasa-boeing-starliner-decision/
I'd imagine they would just change the mission to send an empty Dragon in March to get them, but use the launched September Dragon to return those Starliner astronauts right away.
As for your earlier question: yes. Starliner has to leave before Crew 9 can dock. And their rules are it won't launch Crew 9 until there is a port for it to dock to.
On the ISS there are 4 ports on the Russian side only compatible with the Soyuz / Progress ships and 4 for the US side. 2 are "Common Berthing Mechanism" (CBD) used by Cygnus cargo modules (and the original Dragon 1) and 2 are "International Docking System Standard" (IDSS) used by newer Dragon 2, Starliner, "and future" vehicles.
The result is that before a second Dragon can launch Starliner must leave. If Butch and Suni aren't on it then Crew 9 arrives with 2 empty seats and 2 new space suits. The contingency exit plan in between Starliner leaving and Crew 9 arriving is for Butch and Suni to lay on the floor of Crew 8 Dragon without pressure suits below the 4 Dragon crew members (their Starliner suits can't plug into Dragon's systems).
I find it odd to shame NASA for what is a Boeing failure. They hired Boeing to ferry people to the ISS and back. Boeing built a spacecraft that broke down and is considered too dangerous to carry people on the return leg.
Why are we blaming NASA here?
All government procurement is fraught with industry and political pressure which looks like it happened here, yet again.
Lest it looks like a one time thing, have a look at the OIG report about the SLS program perforance from Boeing, in a disastrous condition.
Yes, we know NASA has been propping up SpaceX, but how does that relate to Boeing?
Oh wait, NASA has been doing the same thing with Boeing that is has been doing with SpaceX? Giving both companies the opportunity to redeem themselves from (sometimes explosive) unexplained errors while paying them hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to do all of it? It's almost as if NASA is trying to create a launch industry instead of a launch monopoly controlled by an erratic individual who has no issues with just randomly blowing stuff up because he feels like it.
No.
SpaceX delivered. And SpaceX hasn’t been called out in a NASA OIG report as having mismanaged a critical programme (SLS Block 1B) [1].
> as if NASA is trying to create a launch industry instead of a launch monopoly
Boeing brings nothing to the table in launch diversification. Crewliner isn’t a launch programme. It is currently the stupidest aerospace programme on the planet, and that would still be true if it actually worked. (Zero redundancy given its dependence on a deprecated launch vehicle.)
[1] https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-015.pd...
Boeing will deliver. Eventually. They always do.
Boeing brings nothing to the table in launch diversification. Crewliner isn’t a launch programme. It is currently the stupidest aerospace programme on the planet, and that would still be true if it actually worked.
Boeing provides a counterbalance to an Elon Musk controlled SpaceX. If Elon were sane, this wouldn't be necessary, but right now he's inflaming race riots in Europe.
At half the cost, pretty much on time and without stranding a crew.
> Boeing will deliver. Eventually. They always do
With infinite time and resources anyone can.
As the OIG’s report spells out, Boeing’s mismanagement is material and unusual. It’s wild to ignore that to justify a false equivalence.
> Boeing provides a counterbalance to an Elon Musk controlled SpaceX
In the way a rubber duck counterbalances a battleship.
There is nothing Boeing is working on that challenges SpaceX launch monopoly. Starliner doesn’t challenge Dragon’s monopoly because it only has seven launches left in its lifecycle. (Again, I’m ignoring that it does not work.)
I’m not arguing we go all in on SpaceX. I’m saying we need a second space provider, and Boeing isn’t it. Continuing to bet on Boeing cements SpaceX’s lead.
SpaceX lost a lot of expensive government equipment in its early days, including DoD satellites estimated to be collectively worth in the billions. (We don't know the actual value because the DoD won't say.)
With infinite time and resources anyone can.
It's a good thing the DoD was willing to keep working with SpaceX after those expensive failures. It's great to have the DoD's unlimited resources on your side even when your CEO fails a drug test that should have gotten your company barred from government contracts. (For those not in the know, Musk openly abuses marijuana, which was still illegal at the federal level in SpaceX's early days, and openly uses ketamine and other psychotropic drugs.)
In the way a rubber duck counterbalances a battleship.
Is SpaceX the rubber duck, because of all of the explosions? The Boeing is built like a battleship, and that's part of the problem: it's too complicated to diagnose from far away. Maybe if they resorted to the rubber duck method of just launching stuff and seeing what doesn't explode?
I’m not arguing we go all in on SpaceX. I’m saying we need a second space provider, and Boeing isn’t it.
Boeing is the only realistic American competitor unless Northrup and Lockheed decide to participate, but those two companies only know one way to do R&D: spend 3x your budget, then come back and ask for more. (And all of the other traditional aerospace vendors are already partnering with Boeing on this project.)
Do you have a background in aerospace engineering?
Starliner is built by committee. There is no reason to have that many RCS thrusters on a LEO platform where you throw away the thrusters every use, other than to justify buying a lot of Rocketdyne thrusters.
> Boeing is the only realistic American competitor
They are literally trying to get out of the launch business [1]. Their only competitive advantages are government relations synergies with defence and their brand.
Boeing is a show competitor. There is zero actual threat they pose to SpaceX, partly because they can’t, mostly because they aren’t bothering to.
[1] https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/boeing-may-sell-space-la...
In an ideal world, NASA would be immune from political pressures the same way the military, which are equally ineffective, seem to be.
They can’t. They are under political pressure from Congress.
Which, in part, is a good thing because it makes NASA into a technology development government agency that creates jobs in sometimes unlikely places and trains people on skills that are very valuable in other fields.
https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/b...
But there were still some good people, and good teams. But yea there were times where the importance of agile methodology in being preached by an executive agile coach before an emergency task force meeting while planes are falling out the sky.
GP just seems to have beef with agile and seems to be trying to loop any random failure, whether or not agile was involved, into the discussion.
Here is a past HN thread discussing exactly this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23856590
NASA have dual launch providers for a reason, and now is the time to take advantage of it.
I'd be amazed if these guys don't come back on Dragon. What's the benefit to NASA on having them coming back on Starliner if the risk level is seen as higher?!
I'd like to see the day where Blue Origin replaces Boeing as 2nd provider though.
Why is the US giving Boeing a free pass for this? it frankly makes the US look pathetic. News stations quit covering it once the cat was out of the bag that this isnt a "routine evaluation" and the crew is actually just stranded.
23 Taikonauts in China made it to and from the Tiangong space station in the Shenzhou xx series of rockets with no issues or delays. Maybe we should ask the China Manned Space Agency for a hand?
NASA is paradoxical, because in terms of how they are perceived they're seen as this ultra risk averse safety-first organization, but in terms of actual behavior - they keep doing the exact same thing which has left 14 astronauts dead, and now these astronauts stranded. There just seems to be a extreme disconnect between the actual engineering staff and the managerial layer, probably exasperated by the fact that political appointees head the organization.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
Edit: also looking at your list of accidents, China has one with 6-100 deaths.
And USSR has 120 deaths in 1960.
I think you need to look at deaths beyond just Astronauts here.
This paradox is easily resolved. As risk aversion goes to maximum, the only acceptable solution is to do what was done before. Anything we deviate from doing before is something that could fail in a new and unknown way, possibly bigger than before.
This isn't a NASA thing, this is one of the basics of large bureaucracies. It is one of the major drivers of their inertia and inability to change course. When the penalty for slightly more failure than before (in anything except money spend, that's OK as long as it's done by high level people) is expulsion and scapegoating and the reward for doing slightly better is a pat on the back and a denied request for a salary upgrade/slight promotion, you converge on having an organization full of people where this is the only path forward, no matter how much acknowledgement there is that the current situation is broken by every last person involved.
To take a really big diversion, one of the deeper aspects of the "move fast and break things" philosophy isn't just about directly moving fast and breaking things; it is creating a culture where people have permission to fail at least a little before being evicted from it. Your biggest successes will always involve some failures on the way, so if you rigorously eliminate all failure from your organization, all but the smallest, most basic of successes will go with it. It's not that you literally want to break things or that managers should necessarily create a "broken things" metric and try to keep it in some band above zero but below catastrophe, it's about making avoiding breakage not calcifying and paralyzing your company by making it the absolute number one priority above all else.
Not really, because commercial air travel had problems early on, and the FAA approach was to investigate, determine root causes, and make changes to eliminate or reduce the probability of them happening again. Assigning blame or scapegoating was not part of their process (not that it didn't happen in the media). And now commercial air travel is very safe.
See the decades long process of trying to switch away from leaded aviation fuel. Small aircraft are all running engine designs from the 1960s despite huge advances in internal combustion and fuel composition in other applications. Getting a new engine design or fuel mixture approved has proven effectively impossible, so processes have defaulted to doing things the exact same way to avoid risk.
See also the 737 MCAS debacle. Boeing was highly incentivized to keep the 737 flight characteristics exactly the same to avoid needing to re-certify the airframe or re-train pilots they invented MCAS to mimic the old behaviour and didn't tell pilots about it, leading to deadly results. Rules designed to allow change actually perversely made it a better option to avoid change (or at least avoid the appearance of change), so risk behaviour defaulted to do it the same way as before.
How sure are you about there being no issues or delays?
To be fair, that we know of. It's entirely possible that their re-entry vehicles also had issues that they decided were an acceptable risk, and were proven correct - without publicizing them.
China has literally dropped rockets on Chinese villages.
The Soviet Union treated its astronauts as disposable, and covered up many of their failed missions.
What do you consider a free pass for Boeing btw?
Soyuz is the most reliable launch vehicle and spacecraft that's ever existed.
I was merely pointing out that soyuz has like 1500+ launches over Falcon 9 and that there is no comparison.
Not the current variants. If we’re integrating everything called Soyuz we may we well do the same with Long March and every American rocket that uses similar engines.
Falcon is widely considered the most reliable platform you can launch on today.
Every statistical audit I’ve seen by someone with a background in aerospace engineering.
> Soyuz has like a 98% average success rate over all the variants
Great. You don’t get to fly on “all the variants,” you fly on the most recent. The RD-107A, 108A and Soyuz-2 are not as reliable as Falcon 9.
You made the comparison first. Are you taking it back then?
Falcon 9 had its first flight in... 2010.
Id personally rather ride Falcon, but to each his own I guess.
Soyuz-U had 765 successes in 786 flights. (97.3%) Soyuz-FG had 69 successes in 70 flights (98.5%) Soyuz-2 has 160 successes in 166 flights (96.3%)
Falcon 9 has 362 successes in 365 flights. (99.1%). That includes the partial failure of the CRS-1 mission, which successfully delivered CRS-1 to the space station but released secondary payloads into a lower than expected orbit. It does't include the AMOS-6 fire, which would bring Falcon 9 down 98.9%.
Falcon 9 is more reliable than Soyuz.
Stuff, not capability. Russia’s recent spacefaring attempts have cemented its deterioration.
Tell that to Vladimir Komarov who launched on Soyuz 1 despite knowing it was a death sentence because if he refused then his close friend (Yuri Gagarin) would have to fly in his stead.
The rocket had several hundred structural problems and they knew it would fail but they launched anyways.
So he died screaming while he burned to death on reentry and he broadcasted it in the clear so that everyone could listen. And they insisted that his remains be shown in an open casket so that leadership would have to look at what they did.
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/c...
Or the three backup crew members who flew Soyuz 11 and died of asphyxiation despite the fact that it was a known issue that the cabin pressure valves that led to their deaths did not reliably close automatically. Manually closing them was not part of their reentry flight plan and the only thing they got was a warning from an original crew member to do so because it wasn't safe and they wouldn't add it to the flight plan.
But neither of those remotely compares to Soyuz 1 or Soyuz 11. The failure in Soyuz 11 had been seen time and again during trainings and testing but was waived away and the only reason it didn't occur earlier was because of pilots unofficially taking steps to mitigate the issue outside of the flight plan that then weren't performed on Soyuz 11. And the failure in Soyuz 1 was expected from before launch. It wasn't a statistical probability that the team made a risky gamble on (like Challenger) but was a definite death sentence. Soyuz 1 is equivalent to if you had the Challenger failure but on several hundred different parts of the rocket instead of on just one.
Either way the point of my original comment was to dissuade the notion that the USSR didn't have embarrassing crewed failures in space flight, not to try and pick sides on who was worse.
My comment was mainly to address the suggestion that those disasters were equivalent to the gross disregard for life that the USSR put their cosmonauts through.
I didn't have that take initially, but the Causality podcast did an episode[1] on it a few years ago that got me into reading more about it.
[0] https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/
[1] https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/
This stuff is still risky even today. It's not like hopping on a flight to Chicago.
Komarov was selected to command the Soyuz 1, in 1967, with Yuri Gagarin as his backup cosmonaut. refusing to fly has the same consequence for every space program: the backup flies.
as for the "died screaming" claim, thats some malarkey.
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/03/135919389/a...
What we've learned: American historian Asif Siddiqi has a transcript of Komarov's final moments in the Soyuz. He got it from the Russian State Archive. It goes like this:
Komarov: Activated, activated, don't worry, everything is in order.
Ground: Understood, we're also not worried. How do you feel, how's everything? Zarya, over.
Komarov: I feel excellent, everything's in order.
Ground: Understood, our comrades here recommend that you take a deep breath. We're waiting for the landing. This is Zarya, over.
Komarov: Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred. [garbled]
Ground: Rubin, this is Zarya. Understood, separation occurred. Let's work during the break [pause]. Rubin, this is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over. Rubin, this is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over. This is Zarya, how do you hear me? Over ...
Certainly that was my first thought when I read "Russian State Archive"
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/01/chin...
I agree it makes the US look pathetic.
and to be honest, if spacex had made the shuttle that was assigned to boeing they would probably have made it work. no plan survives contact with the enemy and no engineering design survives its own prototype. the people working at these companies and managing the teams is what made the difference, not nasa's original design