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As a child of the space race I like to keep on eye on all things space related. After launching the crewed version of Starliner... Boeing and NASA have a pretty messy situation on their hands. If the cranky Starliner burns up in reentry because of dodgy steering jets it would be... bad. If the cranky Starliner burns up in reentry with people on board it would be a disaster.
Having lost two shuttles (and their crews) to risky decision making, NASA is a bit wary about dodgy equipment. Boeing has been great for the stock holders but for their rockets and planes? Not so much. Starliner is turning out to be under engineered, over budget and shoddily made. I'm not blaming the workers - Boeing's space program is actually a jobs program - this is purely a management problem. Lax training, lax quality control, and budget squeezing are all management responsibilities.
Maybe now when the new CEO was trained as an engineer things will turn around... but this is a huge company and the 'squeeze profits' mentality is probably deeply entrenched. A lot of managers need to be fired, new engineers trained up and the whole company needs to be turned around. This may take a decade. Or more.
In the meantime, NASA has decided to 'get off the pot' and have Butch and Suni come home in the safer Dragon capsule. This is a big piece of crow for Boeing to eat but all in all it would be worse if they returned crispy in the Starliner.
I still think NASA's idea to have two launch systems is a good idea - but there needs to be better oversight, consequences for bad actions, and compatibility between systems.
Having lost two shuttles (and their crews) to risky decision making, NASA is a bit wary about dodgy equipment. Boeing has been great for the stock holders but for their rockets and planes? Not so much. Starliner is turning out to be under engineered, over budget and shoddily made. I'm not blaming the workers - Boeing's space program is actually a jobs program - this is purely a management problem. Lax training, lax quality control, and budget squeezing are all management responsibilities.
Maybe now when the new CEO was trained as an engineer things will turn around... but this is a huge company and the 'squeeze profits' mentality is probably deeply entrenched. A lot of managers need to be fired, new engineers trained up and the whole company needs to be turned around. This may take a decade. Or more.
In the meantime, NASA has decided to 'get off the pot' and have Butch and Suni come home in the safer Dragon capsule. This is a big piece of crow for Boeing to eat but all in all it would be worse if they returned crispy in the Starliner.
I still think NASA's idea to have two launch systems is a good idea - but there needs to be better oversight, consequences for bad actions, and compatibility between systems.
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