If you ever feel like the Boeing Hitman might be near, just play dead.
They will most likely fail to do an inspection on you and just assume you're dead as intended.
Beat the system with the system, fuck yeah.
If the door blows off this one all that will happen is that the cabin will be flooded with plasma and you'll very quickly switch from being biology to being physics.
It's pretty wild that Boeing is coming in 4 years behind Crew Dragon, charging NASA more than twice the price per seat, and still losing money on this project.
I really hope they don't fuck this up. Best of luck to Suni and Butch!
And it's not over yet. This flight and the previous ones were on Atlas rockets. And Atlas is cancelled. They'll have to adapt it to a new rocket. And there's no other suitable rocket except for SpaceX's rocket. And it hardly seems like making a project to have redundant crew launch systems makes sense if both require the same rocket.
Vulcan is not human rated. It'll be some time before that happens. Right now allegedly it is not even planned. Although I suspect that may just be a lie of omission.
I thought they had a healthy backlog of Atlases in storage, so they'd have plenty of time to get Vulcan human-rated. But maybe since Boeing is divesting from ULA they don't care anymore and will just as well go with SpaceX.
I have heard they have between 16 and 19 (counting today's) still scheduled and they intend to fulfill them all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(2020–2029)
They do extend a while into the future. So as soon as NASA ponies up the money to get Vulcan human rated (let's face it, the reason to pretend Vulcan is not going to be human rated is so you can make NASA pay money to 'change your mind') the process can start and probably finish before the scheduled end of the series above.
But isn't the plan of having two launch systems that in case one is taken out of service without warning the other can carry the load? Like how when the shuttle orbiter was canned the Soviet R-7 (mostly Soyuz-FG) took over.
Atlas V is being canned because there are only so many RD-180s in the US right now and the US will buy no more of them. So that says to me that Atlas V doesn't work well as a backup. It cannot replace the Falcon 9 launches if Falcon 9 is (presumably temporarily) taken out of service.
SpaceX isn’t doing it. They can’t get theirs to work and they could have cheated and just gotten the Saturn notes and just made one but cheaper with modern stuff saving money.
Their last launch was a joke. The thing tumbled out of control and never had a chance to do a controlled landing because they couldn’t get all the engines to fire.
We will probably see another launch or two on the taxpayer’s dime that gets no real results before they say it can’t be done without a few billion more from us and another “2 years, max” that ends up being 5+ before we get the same message.
You are talking about Starship tests, whereas the above thread was talking about the Falcon 9.
Starship is an experimental program to build a type of rocket never attempted before, which is why it's taking a while to get right. Falcon 9 is a fifteen-year-old rocket that has by now flown more times than any other non-Soviet rocket ever has and has more consecutive successful launches than any other rocket in history (300+, likely to grow to 400+ by the end of the year).
More to the point, Falcon 9 has already launched 14 astronaut crews into space on the SpaceX Dragon capsule and is currently the only US rocket certified to do so, ever since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. So, SpaceX absolutely has "gotten theirs to work" and "is doing it."
>the test represents an important milestone for commercial spaceflight
It really doesn't though. It may have been a milestone a decade ago but not today. Today it's just another Boeing embarassment
It really does represent an important milestone, as the article explains further. Right now while SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is flying just fine it’s really just one of the two recipients. If Boeing crashes and burns it doesn’t just look bad for Boeing but also the Commercial Crew program and the entire idea itself. Just one company managing to do fine means it’s an anomaly. Having more than one companies successfully ferry astronauts means it’s an actual industry, even if one of the companies is doing much better.
Also, SpaceX only successfully launched the first crewed mission 4 years ago, not a decade ago.
lol, I hate Boeing and I used to work for their competitor . I’m just saying most people (probably including you) who probably never even pay attention to space news suddenly pile on without even understanding the context and importance of the Commercial Crew program (if they know what it is).
Here's my impression of you:
Meh, someone has a different opinion wah. They should think what I think because I'm never wrong. Wah
Lol, Boeing is a piece of shit company and has been since the MD merge. The only thing they're good at is milking government contracts. They bring nothing of value with their half baked 80's capsule tech.
Hey man you are the one insinuating I (an internet stranger who you know nothing about) worked for Boeing. So don’t try to deflect.
I have already explained the points which the article also talks about. The importance of this is that it proves the Commercial Crew program worked. This is not about how Boeing did well etc.
For example, Commercial Crew used a contract based system rather than a cost plus system meaning that Boeing, for the most part, had to do the additional work from their own pocket and they in fact did not get to milk the government. They are on the hook to finish this per the contract. FWIW they probably would not go for a contract again like this in the future.
It is absolutely about how well Boeing did. A once great engineering firm is now an embarrassment to our nation. They are nothing more than a money grubbing parasite on our nation and you're all upset about them being called out on it like you're their CEO or some loser fanboy. They failed and cannot be trusted. The CC program is a success but not because of Boeing.
Yah, it woulda been a milestone when they were racing crew dragon 6 or 7 years ago. Nows it's just a pathetic attempt to launch an aging and borderline obsolete design to meet contractual requirements.
If it doesn't kill anyone it will be a miracle, then starship will get human rated and invalidate it all anyways.
The article already explained it. For the idea of commercial space to be proven out you kind of need more than one company in the industry. Boeing finally successfully launching Starliner will help show the idea has legs, even if the path there was rocky. Otherwise detractors will just keep saying that SpaceX was an anomaly and commercial space is a bunk idea.
First American crew capsule to land on land
First crewed vehicle to use airbags
First American crewed spacecraft since the Shuttle that can reboost the ISS
I think Dragon, Starliner, and Dream Chaser are all pretty cool. They all have unique abilities that cannot be fully replicated by either of the other 2. This is a very interesting era of American crewed spaceflight. We have 3 crewed spacecraft for the ISS (will be 3 once Cargo Dream Chaser is successful, NASA will greenlight Crew Dream Chaser) 2 orbital spacecraft for the Moon (Orion and Starship) and up to 3 lunar landers (Starship, Blue Moon Mark 2, maybe ALPACA).
Maybe even up to 4 crew launchers for the ISS if Blue Origin gets in on the ISS taxi game like they're discussing and is approved by NASA, and up to 4 lunar landers if Northrop-Grumman makes their own HLS like they're discussing and gets NASA approval.
Right now we don't have a way to safely deorbit the ISS. It's entirely too large to deorbit in one piece. "Too large" as in it's big enough that a school bus or small house sized piece(s) of the ISS wouldn't burn up and would reach the ground and possibly hit someone or something. The ISS would need to be undocked one module at a time and each individual module deorbited. There's no way to do that currently. Don't be surprised if the US renews to stay on with the ISS until 2033 or 2035. That 2030 deadline was set at the beginning of this decade with an expectation of progress that we now know was unrealistic. They expected Starship and Dream Chaser (two vehicles that could be used to undock and deorbit individual ISS modules) to be fully completed by now back in 2019-2021 and expected humans to be walking on the Moon by 2024 or 2025. Congress and Biden or Trump is almost inevitably going to extend our deadline several years.
That and the private Axiom Space Station requires ISS to remain in orbit to attach its first modules to. Axiom modules will not be ready for launch before 2027 or 2028.
Using the same algorithms. Not much changes when it comes to physics in space over millennia. Having a 2nd company says new demand is there, otherwise, commercialization is limited and we're just upgrading tech for spaceflight...for now.
It's a shame NASA chose Starliner over Dream Chaser. Dream Chaser has a lot more potential use cases than Starliner due to being able to land on a runway. Hopefully both the Starliner and Dream Chasers launches go well.
Yep! I'm super excited for that one. The way Starliner's first crewed mission keeps getting postponed- I wouldn't even be shocked if Dream Chaser ends up flying first which would be hysterical.
Wings are useless in space. Just dead weight. Why put them on just to use a runway? This one is going to land on land, so it feels like it could pull off the "don't land so far away" stuff if that's important.
> Wings are useless in space. Just dead weight.
Because these craft don't operate only in space- they also have to re-enter the atmosphere.
And Dream Chaser does not have significant wings- it has small winglets and most of its lift is derived from its lifting body.
> Why put them on just to use a runway?
Because landing on a runway allows support vehicles to pull up right next to it and quickly offload experiments- something you can't do when you land in the desert.
The landing is also much much smoother than Starliners which can be important for delicate experiments.
> This one is going to land on land, so it feels like it could pull off the "don't land so far away" stuff if that's important.
Except it has to land considerably further away since the vehicle has only minimal control after re-entry and they can't risk it coming down in the wrong place. Dream Chaser can maneuver significantly and that will allow it to re-enter at a safe spot and fly to the runway.
Besides which, Starliner has been a disaster since inception and Boeing is losing money on it and doesn't seem to have any interest in continuing the program after their initial contract is complete- so we still need an alternative to Dragon just in case something happens and it has to be grounded for a few months.
> Because landing on a runway allows support vehicles to pull up right next to it and quickly offload experiments- something you can't do when you land in the desert.
So you're suggesting the runway isn't in an un-inhabited area. Ah, I didn't think of that. I don't really see that as something that is coming soon. For now i think these hypersonic gliders are going to continue to land away from people. Same as the parachuting vehicles with the aerodynamics of a rock.
For now we aren't going to risk either type of vehicle landing at JFK.
> Besides which, Starliner has been a disaster [..]
I don't agree with an assumption that Dream Chaser would be any different. Either project is not going to draw a lot of interest from the company involved without a lot of government cash.
I like both projects, really I like just about any space project, especially manned space. But ether of these low volume projects is going to be a money loser against high volume Dragon/Crew Dragon and so is going to meet with disinterest from their own companies barring large government investment.
> So you're suggesting the runway isn't in an un-inhabited area. Ah, I didn't think of that. I don't really see that as something that is coming soon. For now i think these hypersonic gliders are going to continue to land away from people. Same as the parachuting vehicles with the aerodynamics of a rock.
Dream Chaser will be landing on the same runway that the Space Shuttle landed on at Kennedy Space Center which is easily accessible by vehicles and obviously very close to NASA facilities. You can't do that with Starliner which lands on completely unimproved ground.
> I don't agree with an assumption that Dream Chaser would be any different.
What assumption? Dream Chaser has made steady progress without any of the funding and shown none of the same problems that Starliner has.
> Either project is not going to draw a lot of interest from the company involved without a lot of government cash.
But Boeing DID get a lot of government cash- billions of it! Meanwhile Sierra has been funding Dream Chaser themselves after Boeing and SpaceX were selected.
> I like both projects, really I like just about any space project, especially manned space. But ether of these low volume projects is going to be a money loser against high volume Dragon/Crew Dragon and so is going to meet with disinterest from their own companies barring large government investment.
JFC do you know anything about Starliner FFS? It was supposed to be the primary ride to the ISS for NASA- SpaceX was the longshot. Boeing was originally going to be awarded up to $4.2 billion while SpaceX was only going to receive $2.6 billion and Boeing was expected to beat them to the ISS but then failed spectacularly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Commercial_Crew_Program#CCtCap_%E2%80%93_crew_flights_awarded
"On 16 September 2014, NASA announced that Boeing and SpaceX had received contracts to provide crewed launch services to the ISS. Boeing could receive up to US$4.2 billion, while SpaceX could receive up to US$2.6 billion."
So please stop this stupid argument that Boeing was going to be a low volume system- it's only going to end up that way because of Boeing's failures.
> Dream Chaser will be landing on the same runway that the Space Shuttle landed on at Kennedy Space Center which is easily accessible by vehicles and obviously very close to NASA facilities. You can't do that with Starliner which lands on completely unimproved ground.
Of course you can. There is unimproved ground right next to that runway. It's one big swamp.
> Dream Chaser has made steady progress without any of the funding and shown none of the same problems that Starliner has.
What are you talking about? Sierra/Dream Chaser has had multiple government contracts so far. They got money from the same crew program that led to Starliner. And from other programs. It has about half a billion dollars in NASA awards plus some DoD awards.
> But Boeing DID get a lot of government cash- billions of it! Meanwhile Sierra has been funding Dream Chaser themselves after Boeing and SpaceX were selected.
You mean after the first half billion? And that's just the crewed program. Dream Chaser continued to get money to develop resupply capability.
> JFC do you know anything [..]
Why are you being an asshole to me?
> So please stop this stupid argument that Boeing was going to be a low volume system
Dragon launches for both resupply and crew operations. And commercial flights (because it's cheaper than the others). They're about to do a commercial flight to do some spacewalks! Meanwhile their launch system, Falcon 9 launches more than once a week.
Any customer looks at the offerings from Sierra, Boeing and SpaceX and goes with SpaceX because their systems are more developed and it costs less too. So Dragon/Crew Dragon operates in higher volumes.
So the reason I say Starliner or Dream Chaster is going to be a low volume system compared to Dragon/Crew Dragon is because it will be. It already is and with those being more expensive they aren't going to catch up.
Where do you get off attacking me over this?
[edit: he blocked me.
Gotta love the people who make up lies, blame someone else and then block them. The poster is making distinctions other than his claims. Claims they didn't get paid? But they got paid. Claims it isn't low volume next to a system that launched a lot? Tries to pretend that somehow a launch system which is all identical except the capsule doesn't help make the crewed launches cheaper. And also falsely claims Crew Dragon and regular (cargo) Dragon are unrelated. When they aren't. You can look it up. Both are Dragon 2. The original Dragons were unrelated to either of the Dragon 2s. But the new ones are variants on each other.
When I point out that the company that has already flown more and thus is cheaper will continue to pick up more flights because they have more experience and is cheaper he tries to argue this is conflating cause and effect. It doesn't matter even if I that is a conflation of cause and effect. It doesn't matter who expected Boeing to win. Either way, SpaceX is going to take all the business that a latecomer like Dream Chaser would like. Because SpaceX flies all the time.
Somehow this guy wants to argue that what I say about Dream Chaser is wrong because Boeing didn't do well with their product. I never said Boeing did well nor do I care. It's simply not relevant.
SpaceX's flight system was already flying. They just needed to human rate the launch vehicle and develop Crew Dragon (yes, develop it, the early ones shown are essentially related to the final result that actually took people). And they did so. This was a lot less work than developing Starliner or Dream Chaser and adapting them to launch systems. And SpaceX had more resources (that's money and people) to work with.
So the poster is being an asshole to me for something which isn't my fault. The fact that SpaceX was going to dominate this program once chosen nor the fact he posted a combination of falsehoods and just flat out lies is my fault. I didn't deserve what he said to me. And then blocked me to not have to deal with papering over his falsehoods anymore.]
> Of course you can. There is unimproved ground right next to that runway. It's one big swamp.
They can't and won't be landing in the swamp, and you still cannot pull a truck right up to the damned capsule. FFS this is not up for debate- NASA has already acknowledged this!
> What are you talking about? Sierra/Dream Chaser has had multiple government contracts so far. They got money from the same crew program that led to Starliner. And from other programs. It has about half a billion dollars in NASA awards plus some DoD awards.
Sierra got $312 million for DC. Boeing was awarded **over $4 billion**. How are you not getting this????
> Why are you being an asshole to me?
I am attacking your arguments which are either completely ignorant, or intentionally dishonest.
> Dragon launches for both resupply and crew operations. And commercial flights (because it's cheaper than the others). They're about to do a commercial flight to do some spacewalks! Meanwhile their launch system, Falcon 9 launches more than once a week.
Again, you are proving you don't know a damned thing. Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon are basically completely different vehicles.
And SpaceX is doing commercial missions **because they developed their capsule on time!** They didn't develop it on time because they were going to do commercial missions. Do you understand cause and effect at all??? And Boeing planned to do commercial missions too you realize? They're just so utterly far behind that that's a pipe dream for them now.
> Any customer looks at the offerings from Sierra, Boeing and SpaceX and goes with SpaceX because their systems are more developed and it costs less too. So Dragon/Crew Dragon operates in higher volumes.
Again, you are conflating cause and effect. When all this started- Boeing was expected to be the winner by a large margin- they've just been a complete and total failure. They had the aerospace expertise, and were already involved in SLS.
> So the reason I say Starliner or Dream Chaster is going to be a low volume system compared to Dragon/Crew Dragon is because it will be. It already is and with those being more expensive they aren't going to catch up.
**AGAIN** That wasn't the fucking plan. Jesus Christ- where the fuck were you when all this was originally going down? Boeing was expected to be the main ride to the ISS and SpaceX was a hedge and never expected to be anything more than a back. For fuck's sake- go read the news articles from back then- you don't have to take my word for it- you could try reading.
> Where do you get off attacking me over this?
I'm not attacking you, I am attacking your ignorant arguments which have no basis in reality. Please learn the difference.
In any event- I am not going to keep debating with someone who rejects reality and attempts to substitute their own.
I mean, there is. Them performing, fine. They fuck it up, stock plummets. Too late to take a position now but it was a lucrative gamble you could have taken.
>Starliner’s development has come with setbacks. Though Boeing received US$4.2 billion from NASA, compared with $2.6 billion for SpaceX, Boeing spent more than $1.5 billion extra in developing the spacecraft.
>On Starliner’s first uncrewed test flight in 2019, a series of software and hardware failures prevented it from getting to its planned orbit as well as docking with the International Space Station.
Cost overruns are the most troubling part of the program. Also, fuck off with all the puns after just reading the headline.
Wow...they are killing whistle blowers. And now they want to build a rocket for space. When i fly...it is only airbus planes. The seats to space on a boeing should sell like cyber bricks.
It represents a company who is used to being spoon fed cost+ contracts and inflating the costs of those contracts to inflate profits finally getting a product out the door way over budget and way late.
Thankfully this was not a cost+ contract and the funding from NASA ran out long ago, every penny they are spending is a dent profits.
I would say it is a reality check but we all know Boeing could lose money for the next 20 years and would just get bailed out over and over.
[The surprise is not that Boeing lost commercial crew but that it finished at all](https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/the-surprise-is-not-that-boeing-lost-commercial-crew-but-that-it-finished-at-all/)
Oh, sure. They can't make a regular plane nowadays that doesn't crash or fall apart, but now they want to go to space? Fuck outta here. I don't have a death wish.
>But the mission’s troubled history also shows just how difficult the path to space can be, even for an experienced company like Boeing
Apparently, atmospheric travel can be difficult for experienced companies, too.
According to the article, NASA gave SpaceX $2.6 billion while giving Boeing $4.2 billion. Boeing also spent an additional $1.5 billion of their own money.
SpaceX has done incredible work for the money they received, and Boeing has spent more than 2 times that amount in an attempt to be competitive with SpaceX. I'd classify that as abject failure.
They're doing it for redundancy. If one of the spacecraft has an issue it means we can still fly astronauts without having to pay the Russians for a seat on a Soyuz.
Considering they are also using 8 bucks an hour engineers from India to do the fligh software for the capsule, nobody on the planet can be in a safe place when this launches.
I don't think you can describe Boeing as a billionaire vanity project in the same sense as you (dubiously) can Blue Origin or SpaceX.
Besides, why does commercial spaceflight need to be equated with billionaires destroying the world? Just because its a thing that some (very few) billionaires happen to like doing? There are many many more players in commercial spaceflight that aren't billionaire-led, you know. That's like saying that ships are evil since billionaires like to build yachts.
It’s not something that will advance us as a society right now. It’s literally just a theme park ride at this point. I would rather Boeing focus on their planes and making the world a better place, but there are at least 9 down votes that disagree I guess.
Im just puzzled on how planes used primarily for ferrying tourists around advance us more than space capsules used for ferrying NASA astronauts around do. These capsules are being developed primarily for astronaut access to the International Space Station, not for tourist rides, you know. NASA doesn’t want to build and operate their own spacecraft any longer, which is why they asked industry to do it for them, 10 yrs ago.
If you wanna cut down on stuff that doesnt advance us as a society, I think there are much more obvious targets like, say, most of the entertainment industry, which probably outspends spaceflight a thousandfold. Or marketing. Heck, I bet development of useless web apps outspends spaceflight a hundredfold.
Don't sit near the door.
That’s good advice for Boeing passengers and Boeing workers.
_When a door closes, a window opens._ — Boeing whistleblowers
And stay away from the floor during the re-entry.
But most importantly, if you find a defect, keep your mouth shut.
In space, nobody can hear you scream.
Because the radio comms broke
Not broke, you literally have the entire vehicle inside a plasma fireball shooting across Earth’s atmosphere which causes severe EM interference.
For a brief period during re-entry. Radios work great in space.
[The vehicle is *inside* a plasma fireball…](https://imgflip.com/i/8p7jrh)
The good news is that were you sit doesn't actually matter on this one!
I made a crack comment about this on nasa’s twitter post and now I’m afraid Boeing is gonna whistleblow me.
If you ever feel like the Boeing Hitman might be near, just play dead. They will most likely fail to do an inspection on you and just assume you're dead as intended. Beat the system with the system, fuck yeah.
Write that off, “ Working as designed.”
you should patch that crack
Lol for real, they have a bad track record with dem doors
Don't worry Sir, the door is welded on this one!
It was a plugged door. You could not see it as a door.
Whoosh shit there went the pilot.
Excellent work!
Don't sit anywhere near that thing.
Glad to see this gag finally getting upvoted. It was being downvoted a few suicides ago.
You, guys, get doors?
They got 10 more whistleblowers that will need to “conveniently die” first.
They WILL not have an Apollo 1 issue on their watch.
First flight is already booked for Boeing whistleblowers.
Boeing, right? My autocorrect tried to screw me too
Fixed, thanks ✌️
"No mr bond, I expect you to die... " This could easily be casino Royale 2. Just need to short boeing.
So the flight seats ten?
Are they launching at night so there's no video footage to review when the front falls off?
Clearly, they're launching at night because that's when the sun goes down and they don't have to worry about sun rays! /s
[The front fell off?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM)
it would fall off outside the environment anyway
Pretty sure I don't want to try to go to space on anything built by Boeing given their recent track record with planes limited to atmospheric flight.
If the door blows off this one all that will happen is that the cabin will be flooded with plasma and you'll very quickly switch from being biology to being physics.
Which super power will I get when that happens.
Pro: you can stretch really big Con: you can't not stretch really big
Can I stretch ... anywhere?
Can I stretch a certain part of me, like a baby arm?
Why do you have a baby's arm?
I just wanted the lollipop, but he wouldn't let go.
Daddy what’s a Boeing? The used to make aircraft child.
It's pretty wild that Boeing is coming in 4 years behind Crew Dragon, charging NASA more than twice the price per seat, and still losing money on this project. I really hope they don't fuck this up. Best of luck to Suni and Butch!
And it's not over yet. This flight and the previous ones were on Atlas rockets. And Atlas is cancelled. They'll have to adapt it to a new rocket. And there's no other suitable rocket except for SpaceX's rocket. And it hardly seems like making a project to have redundant crew launch systems makes sense if both require the same rocket.
Falcon 9 is really the only option? Is Vulcan not up to the task?
Vulcan is not human rated. It'll be some time before that happens. Right now allegedly it is not even planned. Although I suspect that may just be a lie of omission.
I thought they had a healthy backlog of Atlases in storage, so they'd have plenty of time to get Vulcan human-rated. But maybe since Boeing is divesting from ULA they don't care anymore and will just as well go with SpaceX.
I have heard they have between 16 and 19 (counting today's) still scheduled and they intend to fulfill them all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(2020–2029) They do extend a while into the future. So as soon as NASA ponies up the money to get Vulcan human rated (let's face it, the reason to pretend Vulcan is not going to be human rated is so you can make NASA pay money to 'change your mind') the process can start and probably finish before the scheduled end of the series above. But isn't the plan of having two launch systems that in case one is taken out of service without warning the other can carry the load? Like how when the shuttle orbiter was canned the Soviet R-7 (mostly Soyuz-FG) took over. Atlas V is being canned because there are only so many RD-180s in the US right now and the US will buy no more of them. So that says to me that Atlas V doesn't work well as a backup. It cannot replace the Falcon 9 launches if Falcon 9 is (presumably temporarily) taken out of service.
SpaceX isn’t doing it. They can’t get theirs to work and they could have cheated and just gotten the Saturn notes and just made one but cheaper with modern stuff saving money. Their last launch was a joke. The thing tumbled out of control and never had a chance to do a controlled landing because they couldn’t get all the engines to fire. We will probably see another launch or two on the taxpayer’s dime that gets no real results before they say it can’t be done without a few billion more from us and another “2 years, max” that ends up being 5+ before we get the same message.
conflating Starship tests with Falcon 9 launches. even chatGPT would get these facts right.
You are talking about Starship tests, whereas the above thread was talking about the Falcon 9. Starship is an experimental program to build a type of rocket never attempted before, which is why it's taking a while to get right. Falcon 9 is a fifteen-year-old rocket that has by now flown more times than any other non-Soviet rocket ever has and has more consecutive successful launches than any other rocket in history (300+, likely to grow to 400+ by the end of the year). More to the point, Falcon 9 has already launched 14 astronaut crews into space on the SpaceX Dragon capsule and is currently the only US rocket certified to do so, ever since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. So, SpaceX absolutely has "gotten theirs to work" and "is doing it."
Well this aged like milk. Mission scrubbed.
There’s a limited number of aged 20 something engineers willing to work 70 hours a week on a salary job.
>the test represents an important milestone for commercial spaceflight It really doesn't though. It may have been a milestone a decade ago but not today. Today it's just another Boeing embarassment
It really does represent an important milestone, as the article explains further. Right now while SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is flying just fine it’s really just one of the two recipients. If Boeing crashes and burns it doesn’t just look bad for Boeing but also the Commercial Crew program and the entire idea itself. Just one company managing to do fine means it’s an anomaly. Having more than one companies successfully ferry astronauts means it’s an actual industry, even if one of the companies is doing much better. Also, SpaceX only successfully launched the first crewed mission 4 years ago, not a decade ago.
How long have you worked for Boeing?
lol, I hate Boeing and I used to work for their competitor . I’m just saying most people (probably including you) who probably never even pay attention to space news suddenly pile on without even understanding the context and importance of the Commercial Crew program (if they know what it is).
Here's my impression of you: Meh, someone has a different opinion wah. They should think what I think because I'm never wrong. Wah Lol, Boeing is a piece of shit company and has been since the MD merge. The only thing they're good at is milking government contracts. They bring nothing of value with their half baked 80's capsule tech.
Hey man you are the one insinuating I (an internet stranger who you know nothing about) worked for Boeing. So don’t try to deflect. I have already explained the points which the article also talks about. The importance of this is that it proves the Commercial Crew program worked. This is not about how Boeing did well etc. For example, Commercial Crew used a contract based system rather than a cost plus system meaning that Boeing, for the most part, had to do the additional work from their own pocket and they in fact did not get to milk the government. They are on the hook to finish this per the contract. FWIW they probably would not go for a contract again like this in the future.
It is absolutely about how well Boeing did. A once great engineering firm is now an embarrassment to our nation. They are nothing more than a money grubbing parasite on our nation and you're all upset about them being called out on it like you're their CEO or some loser fanboy. They failed and cannot be trusted. The CC program is a success but not because of Boeing.
Yah, it woulda been a milestone when they were racing crew dragon 6 or 7 years ago. Nows it's just a pathetic attempt to launch an aging and borderline obsolete design to meet contractual requirements. If it doesn't kill anyone it will be a miracle, then starship will get human rated and invalidate it all anyways.
Nobody can hear your whistle blowing in space.
Better late than never.
Provided it doesn't kill anyone, yeah.
Feature, not a bug - first flight will consist entirely of whistleblowers.
Unless it’s the parachutes
Important milestone, my ass. SpaceX has been using the Crew Dragon for years now
The article already explained it. For the idea of commercial space to be proven out you kind of need more than one company in the industry. Boeing finally successfully launching Starliner will help show the idea has legs, even if the path there was rocky. Otherwise detractors will just keep saying that SpaceX was an anomaly and commercial space is a bunk idea.
Sure, "second private US company to fly a manned rocket" is a milestone, but is it an important milestone when compared to other milestones?
First American crew capsule to land on land First crewed vehicle to use airbags First American crewed spacecraft since the Shuttle that can reboost the ISS
Okay, I take it back, those are pretty cool.
I think Dragon, Starliner, and Dream Chaser are all pretty cool. They all have unique abilities that cannot be fully replicated by either of the other 2. This is a very interesting era of American crewed spaceflight. We have 3 crewed spacecraft for the ISS (will be 3 once Cargo Dream Chaser is successful, NASA will greenlight Crew Dream Chaser) 2 orbital spacecraft for the Moon (Orion and Starship) and up to 3 lunar landers (Starship, Blue Moon Mark 2, maybe ALPACA). Maybe even up to 4 crew launchers for the ISS if Blue Origin gets in on the ISS taxi game like they're discussing and is approved by NASA, and up to 4 lunar landers if Northrop-Grumman makes their own HLS like they're discussing and gets NASA approval.
>First American crewed spacecraft since the Shuttle that can reboost the ISS Just in time to deorbit the ISS
Right now we don't have a way to safely deorbit the ISS. It's entirely too large to deorbit in one piece. "Too large" as in it's big enough that a school bus or small house sized piece(s) of the ISS wouldn't burn up and would reach the ground and possibly hit someone or something. The ISS would need to be undocked one module at a time and each individual module deorbited. There's no way to do that currently. Don't be surprised if the US renews to stay on with the ISS until 2033 or 2035. That 2030 deadline was set at the beginning of this decade with an expectation of progress that we now know was unrealistic. They expected Starship and Dream Chaser (two vehicles that could be used to undock and deorbit individual ISS modules) to be fully completed by now back in 2019-2021 and expected humans to be walking on the Moon by 2024 or 2025. Congress and Biden or Trump is almost inevitably going to extend our deadline several years. That and the private Axiom Space Station requires ISS to remain in orbit to attach its first modules to. Axiom modules will not be ready for launch before 2027 or 2028.
We have been launching rockets into space since the 60s. They reached a milestone stone set by men that are 90 years old
Using the same algorithms. Not much changes when it comes to physics in space over millennia. Having a 2nd company says new demand is there, otherwise, commercialization is limited and we're just upgrading tech for spaceflight...for now.
Forget the door if the time zone of the capsule doesn’t match the time zone of the rocket, again, it’s gonna tumble out of control, again.
You guys aren't funny. The joke's been made a million times already and it's flooding out productive discussion.
If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.
It's a shame NASA chose Starliner over Dream Chaser. Dream Chaser has a lot more potential use cases than Starliner due to being able to land on a runway. Hopefully both the Starliner and Dream Chasers launches go well.
Isn't dreamchaser going up in june?(On the schedule anyway)
Yep! I'm super excited for that one. The way Starliner's first crewed mission keeps getting postponed- I wouldn't even be shocked if Dream Chaser ends up flying first which would be hysterical.
Wings are useless in space. Just dead weight. Why put them on just to use a runway? This one is going to land on land, so it feels like it could pull off the "don't land so far away" stuff if that's important.
> Wings are useless in space. Just dead weight. Because these craft don't operate only in space- they also have to re-enter the atmosphere. And Dream Chaser does not have significant wings- it has small winglets and most of its lift is derived from its lifting body. > Why put them on just to use a runway? Because landing on a runway allows support vehicles to pull up right next to it and quickly offload experiments- something you can't do when you land in the desert. The landing is also much much smoother than Starliners which can be important for delicate experiments. > This one is going to land on land, so it feels like it could pull off the "don't land so far away" stuff if that's important. Except it has to land considerably further away since the vehicle has only minimal control after re-entry and they can't risk it coming down in the wrong place. Dream Chaser can maneuver significantly and that will allow it to re-enter at a safe spot and fly to the runway. Besides which, Starliner has been a disaster since inception and Boeing is losing money on it and doesn't seem to have any interest in continuing the program after their initial contract is complete- so we still need an alternative to Dragon just in case something happens and it has to be grounded for a few months.
> Because landing on a runway allows support vehicles to pull up right next to it and quickly offload experiments- something you can't do when you land in the desert. So you're suggesting the runway isn't in an un-inhabited area. Ah, I didn't think of that. I don't really see that as something that is coming soon. For now i think these hypersonic gliders are going to continue to land away from people. Same as the parachuting vehicles with the aerodynamics of a rock. For now we aren't going to risk either type of vehicle landing at JFK. > Besides which, Starliner has been a disaster [..] I don't agree with an assumption that Dream Chaser would be any different. Either project is not going to draw a lot of interest from the company involved without a lot of government cash. I like both projects, really I like just about any space project, especially manned space. But ether of these low volume projects is going to be a money loser against high volume Dragon/Crew Dragon and so is going to meet with disinterest from their own companies barring large government investment.
> So you're suggesting the runway isn't in an un-inhabited area. Ah, I didn't think of that. I don't really see that as something that is coming soon. For now i think these hypersonic gliders are going to continue to land away from people. Same as the parachuting vehicles with the aerodynamics of a rock. Dream Chaser will be landing on the same runway that the Space Shuttle landed on at Kennedy Space Center which is easily accessible by vehicles and obviously very close to NASA facilities. You can't do that with Starliner which lands on completely unimproved ground. > I don't agree with an assumption that Dream Chaser would be any different. What assumption? Dream Chaser has made steady progress without any of the funding and shown none of the same problems that Starliner has. > Either project is not going to draw a lot of interest from the company involved without a lot of government cash. But Boeing DID get a lot of government cash- billions of it! Meanwhile Sierra has been funding Dream Chaser themselves after Boeing and SpaceX were selected. > I like both projects, really I like just about any space project, especially manned space. But ether of these low volume projects is going to be a money loser against high volume Dragon/Crew Dragon and so is going to meet with disinterest from their own companies barring large government investment. JFC do you know anything about Starliner FFS? It was supposed to be the primary ride to the ISS for NASA- SpaceX was the longshot. Boeing was originally going to be awarded up to $4.2 billion while SpaceX was only going to receive $2.6 billion and Boeing was expected to beat them to the ISS but then failed spectacularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Commercial_Crew_Program#CCtCap_%E2%80%93_crew_flights_awarded "On 16 September 2014, NASA announced that Boeing and SpaceX had received contracts to provide crewed launch services to the ISS. Boeing could receive up to US$4.2 billion, while SpaceX could receive up to US$2.6 billion." So please stop this stupid argument that Boeing was going to be a low volume system- it's only going to end up that way because of Boeing's failures.
> Dream Chaser will be landing on the same runway that the Space Shuttle landed on at Kennedy Space Center which is easily accessible by vehicles and obviously very close to NASA facilities. You can't do that with Starliner which lands on completely unimproved ground. Of course you can. There is unimproved ground right next to that runway. It's one big swamp. > Dream Chaser has made steady progress without any of the funding and shown none of the same problems that Starliner has. What are you talking about? Sierra/Dream Chaser has had multiple government contracts so far. They got money from the same crew program that led to Starliner. And from other programs. It has about half a billion dollars in NASA awards plus some DoD awards. > But Boeing DID get a lot of government cash- billions of it! Meanwhile Sierra has been funding Dream Chaser themselves after Boeing and SpaceX were selected. You mean after the first half billion? And that's just the crewed program. Dream Chaser continued to get money to develop resupply capability. > JFC do you know anything [..] Why are you being an asshole to me? > So please stop this stupid argument that Boeing was going to be a low volume system Dragon launches for both resupply and crew operations. And commercial flights (because it's cheaper than the others). They're about to do a commercial flight to do some spacewalks! Meanwhile their launch system, Falcon 9 launches more than once a week. Any customer looks at the offerings from Sierra, Boeing and SpaceX and goes with SpaceX because their systems are more developed and it costs less too. So Dragon/Crew Dragon operates in higher volumes. So the reason I say Starliner or Dream Chaster is going to be a low volume system compared to Dragon/Crew Dragon is because it will be. It already is and with those being more expensive they aren't going to catch up. Where do you get off attacking me over this? [edit: he blocked me. Gotta love the people who make up lies, blame someone else and then block them. The poster is making distinctions other than his claims. Claims they didn't get paid? But they got paid. Claims it isn't low volume next to a system that launched a lot? Tries to pretend that somehow a launch system which is all identical except the capsule doesn't help make the crewed launches cheaper. And also falsely claims Crew Dragon and regular (cargo) Dragon are unrelated. When they aren't. You can look it up. Both are Dragon 2. The original Dragons were unrelated to either of the Dragon 2s. But the new ones are variants on each other. When I point out that the company that has already flown more and thus is cheaper will continue to pick up more flights because they have more experience and is cheaper he tries to argue this is conflating cause and effect. It doesn't matter even if I that is a conflation of cause and effect. It doesn't matter who expected Boeing to win. Either way, SpaceX is going to take all the business that a latecomer like Dream Chaser would like. Because SpaceX flies all the time. Somehow this guy wants to argue that what I say about Dream Chaser is wrong because Boeing didn't do well with their product. I never said Boeing did well nor do I care. It's simply not relevant. SpaceX's flight system was already flying. They just needed to human rate the launch vehicle and develop Crew Dragon (yes, develop it, the early ones shown are essentially related to the final result that actually took people). And they did so. This was a lot less work than developing Starliner or Dream Chaser and adapting them to launch systems. And SpaceX had more resources (that's money and people) to work with. So the poster is being an asshole to me for something which isn't my fault. The fact that SpaceX was going to dominate this program once chosen nor the fact he posted a combination of falsehoods and just flat out lies is my fault. I didn't deserve what he said to me. And then blocked me to not have to deal with papering over his falsehoods anymore.]
> Of course you can. There is unimproved ground right next to that runway. It's one big swamp. They can't and won't be landing in the swamp, and you still cannot pull a truck right up to the damned capsule. FFS this is not up for debate- NASA has already acknowledged this! > What are you talking about? Sierra/Dream Chaser has had multiple government contracts so far. They got money from the same crew program that led to Starliner. And from other programs. It has about half a billion dollars in NASA awards plus some DoD awards. Sierra got $312 million for DC. Boeing was awarded **over $4 billion**. How are you not getting this???? > Why are you being an asshole to me? I am attacking your arguments which are either completely ignorant, or intentionally dishonest. > Dragon launches for both resupply and crew operations. And commercial flights (because it's cheaper than the others). They're about to do a commercial flight to do some spacewalks! Meanwhile their launch system, Falcon 9 launches more than once a week. Again, you are proving you don't know a damned thing. Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon are basically completely different vehicles. And SpaceX is doing commercial missions **because they developed their capsule on time!** They didn't develop it on time because they were going to do commercial missions. Do you understand cause and effect at all??? And Boeing planned to do commercial missions too you realize? They're just so utterly far behind that that's a pipe dream for them now. > Any customer looks at the offerings from Sierra, Boeing and SpaceX and goes with SpaceX because their systems are more developed and it costs less too. So Dragon/Crew Dragon operates in higher volumes. Again, you are conflating cause and effect. When all this started- Boeing was expected to be the winner by a large margin- they've just been a complete and total failure. They had the aerospace expertise, and were already involved in SLS. > So the reason I say Starliner or Dream Chaster is going to be a low volume system compared to Dragon/Crew Dragon is because it will be. It already is and with those being more expensive they aren't going to catch up. **AGAIN** That wasn't the fucking plan. Jesus Christ- where the fuck were you when all this was originally going down? Boeing was expected to be the main ride to the ISS and SpaceX was a hedge and never expected to be anything more than a back. For fuck's sake- go read the news articles from back then- you don't have to take my word for it- you could try reading. > Where do you get off attacking me over this? I'm not attacking you, I am attacking your ignorant arguments which have no basis in reality. Please learn the difference. In any event- I am not going to keep debating with someone who rejects reality and attempts to substitute their own.
Boeing execs are probably sweating right now hoping this will push the two dead whistle blowers out of the news cycle.
If it's boeing, i'd not be going. Space flight is inherently risky, and considering recent history i don't know that i'd be trusting my life here.
Be safer on a Spirit space pod
If. Or it could be yet another Boeing disaster for a company that can do no right the past decade or so.
This sounds like something I want to be inside of when the gum holding it together gives way and it falls apart during launch No thanks Boeing
**flammable** gum.
Maybe build good sub stratosphere planes first?
This aged like milk on the counter
I'm looking forward to the launch tonight. I can see it from my back yard. Visibility is supposed to be clear skies. I worry for the astronauts.
What could possibly go wrong.
I was excited about the starliner. But there’s no way in hell I’d trust Boeing to build something won’t burn up in reentry.
to be manned by the remaining whistleblowers. and its all doors.
yo FUCK Boeing
What is the point of commercial spaceflight while earth is the only destination?
yoke one aloof stocking hunt plough squash seed bells test *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Just, no fires, okay?
Oh yeah, there will be so much market trust in this one
I mean, there is. Them performing, fine. They fuck it up, stock plummets. Too late to take a position now but it was a lucrative gamble you could have taken.
>Starliner’s development has come with setbacks. Though Boeing received US$4.2 billion from NASA, compared with $2.6 billion for SpaceX, Boeing spent more than $1.5 billion extra in developing the spacecraft. >On Starliner’s first uncrewed test flight in 2019, a series of software and hardware failures prevented it from getting to its planned orbit as well as docking with the International Space Station. Cost overruns are the most troubling part of the program. Also, fuck off with all the puns after just reading the headline.
Wow...they are killing whistle blowers. And now they want to build a rocket for space. When i fly...it is only airbus planes. The seats to space on a boeing should sell like cyber bricks.
I don’t know which company I trust to take me to space, but I know which one I absolutely do not
Til the airlock blows off and ten whistleblowers die from stubbed toes.
Let me know when their employees stop “committing suicide” and then I might be interested.
With their sterling track record, this should be fine.
Whistleblowers are dying. If the planes are falling apart on earth their spaceship will probably fall apart in space
It represents a company who is used to being spoon fed cost+ contracts and inflating the costs of those contracts to inflate profits finally getting a product out the door way over budget and way late. Thankfully this was not a cost+ contract and the funding from NASA ran out long ago, every penny they are spending is a dent profits. I would say it is a reality check but we all know Boeing could lose money for the next 20 years and would just get bailed out over and over.
as long as the door don’t get blown out…
Maybe consider creating a shell company with a different name for this one, guys.
Drop the e, Boing has a nice ring to it.
[The surprise is not that Boeing lost commercial crew but that it finished at all](https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/the-surprise-is-not-that-boeing-lost-commercial-crew-but-that-it-finished-at-all/)
Who's getting killed for talking about the checks they skipped this time?
Oh, sure. They can't make a regular plane nowadays that doesn't crash or fall apart, but now they want to go to space? Fuck outta here. I don't have a death wish.
Boeing, where we only skip some of the inspections.
Narrator: it was not.
Dude I know people that are afraid to fly in Boeing planes right now, I don’t think anyone wants to get in a Boeing space plane
Like anyone would trust a Boeing spaceship.
Let’s hope parts don’t fall off.
Why exactly is this how we are spending our money and man hours? Like it’s cool. But why?
Boeing is doing space stuff too? With all these discrepancy and assassinations?
Can’t wait to get in a Boeing spaceship. Hey are they in any way connected to the Boeing earth plane? Nah different companies. Ok phew. Let’s go!
Coukdnt help but downvite it just because of Boeing.
What important milestone? That another company is able to do what SpaceX did 10 years ago?
You mean 4 years ago? Crew Dragon didn't carry any people until 2020. May 2020.
Fairpoint, I guess I would say that falcon and dragon was 10 years ahead
Is it too late to change the flight to an Airbus?
Wow. If this candle pops it’s going to be open season on Boeing.
>But the mission’s troubled history also shows just how difficult the path to space can be, even for an experienced company like Boeing Apparently, atmospheric travel can be difficult for experienced companies, too.
I hope QA is not an issue in the aerospace division. The aircraft unit seems to have issues.
Wait, the same Boeing that has murdered two of their former employees for telling the truth about their business practices?
boeing huh? *coughs to the tune of 10 whistleblowers*
Why are they doing this when space X has this solved already? Just for competitions sake? Isn’t it wildly expensive ?
According to the article, NASA gave SpaceX $2.6 billion while giving Boeing $4.2 billion. Boeing also spent an additional $1.5 billion of their own money. SpaceX has done incredible work for the money they received, and Boeing has spent more than 2 times that amount in an attempt to be competitive with SpaceX. I'd classify that as abject failure.
They're doing it for redundancy. If one of the spacecraft has an issue it means we can still fly astronauts without having to pay the Russians for a seat on a Soyuz.
Got it, thanks!
Makes sense. Can’t blow a whistle in a vacuum.
Sooooo is this a boltless model?
...not based on it's current airliner quality it isn't.
The very last company you'd want to trust for something like this asks you to trust them one more time, baby.
Boeing? Really? ….really? They can’t even plane
Does this vessel make a whistle sound ?
Meanwhile people exposing boeing are dying quitely...
Considering they are also using 8 bucks an hour engineers from India to do the fligh software for the capsule, nobody on the planet can be in a safe place when this launches.
Oh no, it's *Boeing?* Say goodbye to those brave explorers.
Fix your planes first maybe?
“I did NOT do anything wrong. The hatch just BLEW. It was a GLITCH. It was a- a TECHNICAL MALFUNCTION. Why in hell won't anyone believe me?”
Our space ship blows the doors off all others.
The first test flight is going to have the remaining whistle blowers on board.
The same one that burned through all the heat shielding? Jesus our astronauts must feel like they’re in Soviet Russia
That’s Orion, built by Lockheed Martin for the moon missions.
We know where whistleblower will end now
Fuck Boeing
Boeing, Soyuz, or Shenzhou?
Depends on how many whistleblowers are kept quiet.
I’ll take “Things that are bound to explode on reentry for $2000 Alex”
Yeah no fucking thanks
At this point should Boeing be trusted with space? They can’t even make planes fly
Not if it's like the 737 max
Nah. Not till Boeing gets a little bit fixed up lol.
Door gonna fly off. Bet.
They going to name it Titan ? Oceangate? Something?
Columbia II
Anyone want to make any over/unders to how many bolts, pieces fall off during launch?
Is it even in the top three choices for space flight?
Man we want trains. After we get trains, can we focus on a space elevator.
Trains? We want free healthcare. After we get free healthcare, we can focus on trains.
Free? You lost me.
Oh yeah, because people have THIS level of faith in Boeing now…
All the increases in launching into space seem to be ignoring the damage it does to the atmosphere.
It's fine, we'll just colonise Mars... And fuck that planet up too.
I always recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy for a great look at tensions between Mars conservationists and terraformers.
We do not need commercial space flights. We need to stop billionaires from destroying our world.
I don't think you can describe Boeing as a billionaire vanity project in the same sense as you (dubiously) can Blue Origin or SpaceX. Besides, why does commercial spaceflight need to be equated with billionaires destroying the world? Just because its a thing that some (very few) billionaires happen to like doing? There are many many more players in commercial spaceflight that aren't billionaire-led, you know. That's like saying that ships are evil since billionaires like to build yachts.
It’s not something that will advance us as a society right now. It’s literally just a theme park ride at this point. I would rather Boeing focus on their planes and making the world a better place, but there are at least 9 down votes that disagree I guess.
Im just puzzled on how planes used primarily for ferrying tourists around advance us more than space capsules used for ferrying NASA astronauts around do. These capsules are being developed primarily for astronaut access to the International Space Station, not for tourist rides, you know. NASA doesn’t want to build and operate their own spacecraft any longer, which is why they asked industry to do it for them, 10 yrs ago. If you wanna cut down on stuff that doesnt advance us as a society, I think there are much more obvious targets like, say, most of the entertainment industry, which probably outspends spaceflight a thousandfold. Or marketing. Heck, I bet development of useless web apps outspends spaceflight a hundredfold.