Boeing Starliner Stuck on Space Station as More Leaks Discovered
Boeing Starliner Stuck on Space Station as More Leaks Discovered
Bpoeing has discovered five different helium leaks on its Starliner spacecraft while docked to the International Space Station.
Please be forced to ask China for help it would be so fucking hilarious.
China's space program is doing so much better than the west, it's not even close, btw.
Reminder that US congress made NASA cooperation with China illegal, but that didn't stop us from having the fucking audacity to request access to lunar samples acquired by Chinese missions.
I mean, CNSA hasn't done anything particularly new or revolutionary in terms of space travel. It's a lot of LEO stuff with reused Soviet gear that isn't anything that hasn't been done before. It's a faster timetable than the west but it's not like the US or Soviets in the 60's.
reused Soviet gear
"Doing so much better" is overstating it IMO. I believe that, the way things are going now, China's space capabilities will overtake America's sooner or later, but they're still playing catch-up at the moment. The lunar sample return is a big win but the Americans got the first moon rocks in 1969 and since then multiple other space agencies have returned rocks from the moon and even some comets. Getting the first Mars sample return is possible, since both the Chinese and American plans for this are slated for the early 2030s, and IMO if achieved would signal China finally surpassing America's capabilities.
Would be kinda funny if Boeing ended up wrecking the ISS somehow
NASA is gonna be begging China to let them use their space station, but it’s gonna be blocked by the president for “national security”
i started laughing because i thought this was a good fakenews post and then i looked at the comm lmaooo
I thought it was fakenews because I had no idea Boeing built something that actually travels into space
though I guess technically they still haven't, but still
I thought it was fakenews because I had no idea Boeing built something that actually travels into space
The dirty little secret of the US space program is that absolutely everything that's flown to orbit under NASA ownership has been manufactured by a for-profit company. NASA does not, and never has, built orbital rockets in-house. Not a single one. The US senate keeps an iron grip on NASA's pursestrings, and they've used NASA as a glorified slush fund to top up defence contractor coffers.
Over the decades there's been a lot of consolidation of the aerospace industry. Boeing now owns what's left of the companies that built every single spacecraft that's launched humans to space from US soil, except for SpaceX's Crew Dragon. The X-15 rocket plane (which is amazing piece of engineering that deserves its own effortpost), Mercury, Gemini, the Apollo CSM, the Space Shuttle, and now Starliner. They also own what's left of a whole lot of orbital rocket manufacturers. Of course there's little-to-no engineering DNA in Starliner from those prior programs - I was just using them as examples of prior commercialization of space.
All that's really changed in the "new commercial space race" is that private companies are now doing design work in addition to construction, and NASA can now do fixed-price contracts instead of the expense-bloating "cost-plus" contracts. Most of the loudest voices in US politics whining about the "commercialization of space" are quietly getting a lot of campaign funding from the old defence contractors who are pissed that fixed-price contracts are becoming the norm. Boeing has lost literally billions of dollars on the Starliner program because of their own constant screwups that they can't just send NASA an invoice for like they used to be able to do. It's one of those new style of fixed-price contracts that's now saving NASA's financial bacon. All these delays and re-tests are entirely at Boeing's expense.
Boeing makes the minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles, they just dont care about their civilian airliners
It's one thing to board a Boeing jet for a 6 hour domestic flight, but you've gotta have a death wish to trust their penny-pinched contraptions to take you through orbit.
What, you don't trust a corporation that has become notorious for its aviation fuckups to make a usable spacecraft?
This is the FIFTH helium leak they’d gotten so far, and we’re not even at the end of the mission yet.
Seriously I’d rather take the Soyuz (the AK-47 of spacecrafts) if my life ever depends on it than any of these over-engineered crap.
Also, reminder of this news (posted to news mega at the end of May):
Boeing decided not to fix the helium leak from the Starliner spacecraft before sending the first crew to the ISS
Although the oxygen valve on the Atlas V rocket was replaced, Boeing and NASA decided to launch the Starliner with two astronauts to the ISS without replacing a small seal on the helium supply system in the service compartment. The leak affects only one of the 28 engines used to control the spacecraft's altitude, and is small enough to be dangerous, and taking the ship to the workshop and completely rebuilding it is time-consuming and ineffective. Instead, engineers will monitor the leak before the launch on June 1, and if it does not increase, the launch will go ahead.
Surely nothing would go wrong. Surely.
laissez-faire space travel is working about as well as expected
The Soyuz is by far the most reliable spacecraft in existence. The Soviets really knew how to build em :ussr-cry:
I worry for any future whistleblowers from Boeing.
You probably can't blow a whistle in space. The little ball inside the whistle needs gravity to work.
I guess it's really the friction, so maybe if you blow hard enough, it will still work
comrade helium has exposed engineering flaws with Boeing hardware and for its trouble is being ejected into space. another tragic whistleblower death 💔
Why does helium want to help trump?
Why is everyone talking so funny?......Damnit not again!
Boeing
We didn't explode you in orbit but now you're stuck in space, HAHAHAI mean besides the systemic rot and corruption is there any other reasons the government gives money and contracts to this clown company?
In America that is enough
Boeing Starliner you have the opportunity to do something hilarious right now
you mean it can start talking in a really high pitched voice?
Fall on Joe Biden?
Who the fuck thought that letting the company that can barely keep planes in the air should be allowed to send humans to space?
Oh, literal leaks
it’s to drown search results about the figurative leaks
Imagine how crap you have to be to get lapped by cybertruck guy.
this couple be a problem. holy shit imagine they can't decouple and deorbit themselves.
there is a dragon endevour capsule docked. capacity: 4.
there is the soyuz crew capsule "escape pod". capacity: 3
3 automated freighters (cygnus and 2 progress. capacity: 0 no re-entry capability
total crew on ISS (including the fucked Starliner): 9
they do have loads of supplies and i imagine maybe space-x could send a crewless automated dragon to act as a bus
EDIT: apparently the dragon "Endevour" has passenger capacity for 3
After NASA canceled the shuttle program, the Russians and their Soyuz were the only means of manned travel to and from the station for years. I don't know how the Ukraine war has impacted that working relationship, or to what degree it pushed NASA to contract work out to these shitty fucking companies. But if it comes down to it, I'm sure something will be arranged for American astronauts to come home via Baikonur as they've done so many times before.
ok so yeah i just did some more reading and the Dragon capsule has spare passenger capacity. the soyuz didn't.
so they can bring the Starliner crew back on the dragon if needed.
at first i was like "i can't believe they didn't plan for emergencies"
They have more than enough capability to keep astronauts alive to send up another capsule to take people down, either by dragon or by soyuz. Nobody is in any real danger here.
yeah i edited my comment much earlier
Event Boeing-rizon
Libera Tutemet Ex Infernis!
Columbia 2: Explosive BoogalooYep. It's officially a piece of shit.
