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Comment by lupusreal | Hacker News Reader

Best thing that could happen for Boeing right now is for Elon Musk to order that contract terminated, so Boeing can subsequently assert a conflict of interest and sue the government over it. When Bill Nelson announced that he didn't see the Starliner program ending before fulfilling it's contract I could feel Boeing shareholders everywhere wincing.

Boeing, for what it's worth, has learned from their mistakes with this project; they will never accept fixed-price contracts again. Rendering a service for an agreed upon amount of money is too complicated for Boeing, they will now only accept "cost-plus" infinite money tap contracts.

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> Boeing, for what it's worth, has learned from their mistakes with this project

Ha ha, no.

What Boeing should have learned, after the past 5 years of repeated failures, and 346 deaths -may they rest in peace-, is that their engineering quality is lacking.

The only logical conclusion that can be made from all these failures is crystal clear: we have to prioritize engineering quality, so that our products can be delivered on time, and work safely and as expected. With this, we can create value that can be redistributed to our shareholders.

What you suggest they learned is: let's refuse fixed-price contracts, so that we can milk this cow until she starves.

And unfortunately, knowing Boeing, that's exactly the lesson they will have taken away from this program, which is why we can expect them to continue failing miserably in the future. Probably at the cost of human lives.

> we have to prioritize engineering quality, so that our products can be delivered on time, and work safely and as expected

This would require upper middle management at Boeing deciding to fire themselves, so they can hire better engineering management.

>so that we can milk this cow until she starves.

Since the federal government is one absolutely huge, well-fed cow, you can expect Boeing to continue milking this teat for a very long time to come. Let's just hope that fewer people die as a result; We all fly Boeing at one time or another.

> We all fly Boeing at one time or another.

Kayak.com allows you to pick flights based on the aircraft.

didn't know that, but, useful thing to know indeed.

> "What you suggest they learned is: let's refuse fixed-price contracts, so that we can milk this cow until she starves."

Not my suggestion! They've actually said this: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/boeing-says-it-cant-ma...

I should have been a bit heavier with my sarcasm, I definitely disapprove of the way Boeing is going.

Can you give me a engineering quality metric, so i can game and gamble it?

>Boeing, for what it's worth, has learned from their mistakes with this project

okay, learning is good

>they will never accept fixed-price contracts again

Yeah, that's not the lesson they should take from this fiasco.

Given how Boeing was reportedly acting regarding the development of a new crew vehicle[1], the hubris shown seems to be systemic, top to bottom. I have no empathy for the Boeing management that got them into this situation, and if their takeaway is "we're just not going to accept contracts like this", and not, "we need to deeply change how we engineer solutions", then coupled with the 737-max tragedies, Boeing can go bankrupt for all I care.

[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Starliner/comments/1f0g0ow/some_int...

Please understand, putting a can of human beans into LEO using a preexisting flight proven rocket is very hard and there is no possible way America's most experienced aerospace company could have possibility come up with a realistic estimate for what it would cost.

There is a competency crisis at Boeing. Not in America generally, as some have suggested, but Boeing specifically.

Boeings problem is not that the United States government isnt giving it enough blank checks (cost plus contracts). If anything it’s the opposite. Fat cat got fat, and now everyone else in encroaching on their territory.

This is the true tragedy of Doge right now. The amount of fat cat entities who are eating themselves to death on the backs of USA tax payers is staggering. But I doubt anything effective ever comes out of Elon and company here.

"venture firm Space Capital predicts both Boeing and Airbus will divest their space divisions in 2025":

https://spacenews.com/space-venture-firm-predicts-industry-s...

SpaceX is making both of them pull out we are in the stupid place of having to depend on Bezos to be cost efficient competition.

China will be launching their reusables (note plural) this year.

They already learned that lesson with airforce one. Unsure on the timelines of them, but agreeing with others that it's the wrong lesson to learn. FFP can be done well. They are not doing them well.

Best thing for Boeing is for it to have competent engineers take over the leadership.

Boeing needs to be Boeing not McDonnell Douglas.

It's probably better for Boeing to give up its space business and focus on its airplane safety.

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