Hacker News Reader

Comment by xyst | Hacker News Reader

What a massive embarrassment for NASA and Boeing. Boeing name used to mean something, now it’s joined the rest of the junk in this modern world.

View on HN

I'm waiting for Boeing to change its name to get away from all of the negativity associated with Boeing. It's the classic move for a company that doesn't really want to change business practices, but need to "start over"

  Blackwater
   |
  Xe Services
   |
  Academi
   |
  Constellis Holdings

I wonder if Boeing will try that? They still seem to be in the "deny deny deny, hope people forget" method of operation.

I think this is much less embarrassing for NASA than Boeing. NASA outsources their engineering now, and Boeing was, until very recently, a prestigious aeronautical engineering company. It's going to be very difficult for the world to adjust to the new reality that Boeing is no more. It's an even stranger reality that the company which routinely blows up rockets in pursuit of what everyone believed was impossible just a few years ago is now the clear and obvious choice. I think that's the even bigger story here for me: what Musk has done with SpaceX is nothing short of revolutionary. In hundreds of years people are going to be watching this as a pivotal moment in human development: https://youtu.be/sf4qRY3h_eo?si=fAhcunCLHY803wn7&t=454

Look at this shit. Just look at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AXnMlxK22A

NASA has always outsourced their engineering to aerospace companies.

Indeed.

It's amazing how many people, whether sympathetic to SpaceX or not, believe that NASA built its previous spacecraft in-house or something. The main differences between Commercial Crew and previous US manned space programs are that a) two different vehicles were built, not one, and b) NASA does not own or operate the vehicles; their builders do. Everything else is the same: NASA provided specifications for what it wanted in a manned spacecraft capable of reliably carrying people to ISS, various companies bid based on the specifications—their designs varying greatly from one another—and NASA chose the winning bids.

> The main differences between Commercial Crew and previous US manned space programs are that a) two different vehicles were built, not one, and b) NASA does not own or operate the vehicles; their builders do. Everything else is the same: NASA provided specifications for what it wanted in a manned spacecraft capable of reliably carrying people to ISS, various companies bid based on the specifications—their designs varying greatly from one another—and NASA chose the winning bids.

I think there is a big difference you haven't mentioned.

With Apollo, with the Space Shuttle, with the US components of the ISS, with SLS/Orion – NASA owned the design and made the big design decisions. They hired contractors to do a lot of the grunt work of the engineering – analysing different options, fleshing out high-level designs into detailed designs, etc – but the big picture design decisions were made by NASA. (Or, in the case of SLS, dictated to NASA by Congress.)

By contrast, with Commercial Cargo/Crew and HLS, NASA is just writing the requirements spec and letting the contractors make the big design decisions. And then the contractors have to convince NASA's engineers that the design actually fulfils those requirements. But NASA isn't making decisions like "what fuel should the launch vehicle use"–so long as they can convince NASA that what they are doing meets the requirements spec, the contractor can do almost anything they like. Whereas, on earlier programs, NASA was making the final call on many of those high-level design decisions.

I grew up in Huntsville, AL, in the 60s and the space program was the main business of the city. My father worked for Chrysler Corp. on the Saturn 1B, and most of our neighbors worked for either NASA or one of the many contractors.

>and Boeing was, until very recently, a prestigious aeronautical engineering company

what do you define as "recently"? This Boeing/lockheed project has been a taxpayer funded disaster for over a decade and this is just the obvious end result. Boeing managed to siphon billions of tax dollars in the meantime

imagine if you could go back in the past 20 years and show someone that video. it's science fiction level crazy. im happy and proud that happened in the US and not china or russia, everyone else should be too

> Look at this shit. Just look at it:

Thanks for the link. That is truly amazing to watch!

It’s hard not to be cynical these days when almost everything seems to be “maximize every possible drop of profit at the expense of almost anything else.” It seems so short-sighted and instant-gratification-y.

Why for NASA?

Boeing is the one who (yet again) let everyone down. First by making another unreliable vehicle, then by downplaying the seriousness.

No, it is not an embarrassment. Space is hard, failures do happen often there. There is and will always be a human factor, politics and cost optimizations. Despite that they delivered people to ISS and have a plan B. It is partial success. The problems will eventually be fixed and USA will solidify its leadership in space race by having different launch systems and never again being dependent on rival powers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com