NASA boss says Boeing Starliner failure one of worst in its history | Hacker News Reader

NASA boss says Boeing Starliner failure one of worst in its history

bbc.com

2 pointsmywacaday3 comments

The fact they rate it the same risk category as one with fatalities says a lot. (I think, in a good way)

The "stranded" language gets really tiresome. It was not an Andy Weir novel, there was no desert island adventure, and they could have returned home very quickly in case of any actual (say, medical) necessity. They stayed on the ISS for months because of politics, bureaucrats, optics, and costs.

Bigger picture, this looks like Isaacman's opening move to kill off Starliner. However badly NASA needs an alternative to SpaceX's Dragon - Starliner is a steaming heap of engineering fail. And Boeing has shown no interest in pouring enough money and competence into it to change that. So long as Trump backs him against Boeing's lobbying, killing Starliner has only upsides for Isaacman.

Which still leaves NASA looking for a Dragon alternative.

Sierra Space's Dream Chaser has been under development for 15 or so years, and might manage an unmanned test flight in the next year or two. In a cargo-only version. Not a horse to bet on.

Lockheed Martin's Orion seems to work... +/- some heat shield issues. Biggest issue there is whether it could work without an Artemis-sized budget.

Blue Origin has nothing in the space - but has shown signs of being a real rocket company (vs. a rich man's go-nowhere hobby), and Bezos has deep pockets. One might speculate that the recent suspension of their New Shepard program was part of the crash-priority development of a new manned orbital vehicle. But if nothing else, the old Bezos/Musk rivalry makes the threat of Blue Origin useful in dealing with SpaceX.

I don’t think that they should try to look for an alternative to Dragon. SpaceX knocked it out of the park, and spending money on an alternative just to have an alternative isn’t necessary. The main innovation, if you want to call it that, of the Commercial Crew program was that it didn’t allow “cost–plus” contracts. That’s the part to keep.

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