The Starliner drama has been a major setback for Boeing’s space ambitions, adding to years of struggle to get the capsule off the ground and keep up with rival company SpaceX.
Imagine you're stuck in space... and your two options for getting home are Boeing and SpaceX. Is OceanGate going to branch out into space travel next? I hope these brave souls make it home safely.
As much as I detest SpaceX and the literal child in charge of the company, their craft at least has a track record of safely bringing astronauts to and from the ISS. Boeing doesn't even have that.
SpaceX is Shotwell's company, and she's way more capable of driving success than the fuckstick who does their PR. It's difficult to dismiss the objectively astounding leaps in technical progress that the engineers at SpaceX have achieved.
Musk could take a long walk off a short bridge and it wouldn't affect SpaceX's operations at all.
I feel the same as you, but you really can't deny the fact that the engineers at his various companies have managed to design some really great tech despite their CEO.
Not just spacecraft either. Starlink is really the first usable satellite broadband, and Tesla has mastered the art of putting advanced powertrain in terrible automobiles.
some people don't realize that, despite politics and who owns it, they launch like 90% of the things in orbit worldwide. they are essentially the standard.
I hate Musk but he is not the one who designed the Falcon rockets and capsule which have the best track record. I would much prefer to go on one of those than Starliner.
They've been transporting American space personal since at least March
Not sure what could have changed since, but when US/Russia relations at some of the worst levels in history, I'm surprised this last lingering relationship has held out as long as it has.
SpaceX has a regular scheduled launch that's been sitting around delayed waiting for Starliner to leave the ISS, so kicking two people off it and replacing them with the Starliner crew is convenient and minimizes the schedule disruption.
Soyuz only has three seats and launching a Soyuz with only one crew or empty is something Russia hasn't done since the 60s and would be more work.
NASA is still doing a seat exchange and launching Johnny Kim on the next Soyuz in March, but it looks like it’ll be just Russians on at least the next 2 Soyuz’s after that
I'm just slightly less out of the loop than you, read somewhere it would take a bit longer than Space X but there is some kind of emergency rocket ready-ish.
I'll wait for people with actual information to correct me tho.
I always feel extreme tension during movies and TV if the scene is an oxygen leak from a space shuttle. Now I'm imagining that, but they have to repair things with their janky Xbox controller setup. Holding things upside-down, of course, because they wired the engines backwards.
That wouldn't work even a little bit. Not just because spacesuits aren't heat resistant so you'd burn up on reentry, but because they don't have enough ∆V to slow down from orbital velocity in the first place.
You'd be like Jebediah in my Kerbal Space Program campaign, floating around the planet without a spacecraft indefinitely.
And a record for degrees of burning (if surviving), when inevitably meeting the upper layers of atmosphere (especially ionosphere) at supersonic speeds (due to gravitation acceleration as well the current speed of ISS being 7659 meters per second / 17133 miles per hour). Ah, you'd need to find a way to lose horizontal speed in order to fall vertically (orbiting is falling both horizontally and vertically while never actually reaching the ground, at least while the orbiting thing maintains its orbit with subtle periodic adjustments through RCS/ionic thrusters).
Although, I gotta say, "Hard pass on that Starliner, I'm putting my faith in an Elon Transport Solution" really speaks to the deplorable state of American aerospace.
Except that there have been 12.5 successful Crew Dragon flights (one is still docked to ISS) and, critically, zero crew casualties.
I'd put my faith in Elon Transport Solution (that realistically Elon has nothing to do with any more, operationally) over Made By A Company Where Sometimes The Door Plugs Come Off Transport Solution any day.
Na this has been an unprecedented scale of fuckups. Dont make investment decisions like timing the market. Make investment decisions based off the quality, scalability and value of the company itself. Warren Buffet 101.
Wouldn't it be interesting if they make it back safely on the X snap dragons capsule thing and then they bring back the boing capsule and it burns up? It mean, if nothing happens it's okay, but If it does!?
The nice part is that they had two options. They couldn't prove the safety of Starliner completing the crew test flight, but it's good that there are 2 commercial crew vehicles that they could have chosen. That kind of choice is what the commercial crew program is all about.
Why would this be their downfall when they have controversies like making all the kids in America watch a teacher burn up in the atmosphere because middle management didn't wanna replace o-rings? Or hiring nazis? Or naming their $10 billion telescope after a guy who presided over a gay purge?
The NASA and SpaceX relationship is just fine. There's no real rush to bring them back, the ISS can accommodate them just fine.
This was always going to be the outcome as soon as there was a question about safety, regardless of what they said publicly. NASA has lost 14 astronauts due to poor managerial decisions throughout the Shuttle program. They don't want to get near that if they don't have to, and there have been alternatives since day one thanks to the Commercial Crew Program (and of course Russia/Soyuz if absolutely necessary).