Reasons


Do you really expect Boeing to keep track of software and hardware versions at this point?!?

Using the Boeing (Piper official supplier) order system to get parts for my Malibu makes me think I am drifting in space most of the time. Parts that show a 189 day lead time are available from just about anyone else. They are the last place I go to for parts.
Kevin

What great reads!

Thank you and I stand corrected!



This in incorrect.

This was just what CBS news reported because complex issues are just too hard. They essentially made it up.

Both astronauts followed the checklists correctly and the RR was in AUTO per the landing checklist. (Originally the thought was that they could track angles on Columbia during the descent but this was abandoned. Programming was not changed and neither was the checklist. The interface between the RR and the computer was not fully understood at the time.)

At some point in time Aldrin said he left it in auto in case there was an abort but it was on the checklist to be in AUTO so he would have had to go cowboy to put it in SLEW or OFF.

Here are a couple of papers that explain the issue.

https://ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/Ch ... egesis.pdf

https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html

There is also an entire white paper that covers just this subject in its entirety.

IF the Starliner crew is returned on a Dragon at some point; would that be the first instance we know of where a crew was rescued in space?

Maybe there is another I can't think of. It would be a fairly dubious distinction.

Less importantly, is a semi-colon the correct punctuation in S1L1?

Tj

“Rescue” seems a bit excessive. It’s more akin to calling an Uber when your car breaks down.

Returning the crew is at this point less of a problem than getting Starliner safely off the station. At the moment doing so requires manual intervention, something that NASA appears to be uncomfortable with.

The question is what next. If Dragon rescues the crew, is that the end of Starliner? Not only is program several billions under, but the contract was to deliver 6 flights. Would Boing have to refund the contract? Will NASA let it continue?

If that isn't definition of rescue then I don't know what is. They can't come back on their own, hence needing rescuing.

I'm pretty sure that just releasing it while pressurized with it's forward hatch open would result in the spacecraft departing the ISS without any danger of a collision.

From NY Times report today:

Wasn’t there people on ISS that took the Russian capsule backdown bc shuttle broke up?

If that isn't definition of rescue then I don't know what is. They can't come back on their own, hence needing rescuing.

Apparently it's that last part that's the problem. The "release me" button is on the inside of the Starliner, so somebody is going for a ride once it's pushed, and nobody's going anywhere until it is.

That is unless they can figure a way to update the flight data to allow autonomous operation. Apparently this is a capability that existed, but was removed in later flight software once they had demonstrated that the ship could fly. My take on it is that Boeing always intended for it to be a manually operated spacecraft and only implemented the automated process for the flight demonstration. After that was completed they abandoned the flight data set for autonomous operation. How do you spell short sighted? ... starts with a "B"...

Now it's looking like they are "stuck" there until at least Feb 2025.

I have no doubt that those two astronauts are immeasurably braver than I am, but I can't imagine them setting foot in that capsule with the intent of returning to Earth in it.

Those people NEED to be RESCUED.

This has long left the realm of laughing at Boeing. This is a national embarrassment and disgrace.

That's the billion dollar question that a lot of people are asking. Obviously there is a lot of politics behind it. Not partisan politics, just old boy's club NASA and their contractors, and how they get paid type of politics. NASA has an image to try to maintain. Boeing, well, we're pretty well past that, but all along they've needed a second way to get people to and from the ISS. It was originally imagined that Starliner would be primary and Dragon would be the backup, but obviously things didn't work out that way. However, the recent oopsie on the Falcon 9 upper stage shows why a second vehicle system is necessary. Is that Starliner? I suspect that depends a lot on things that are happening behind closed doors. Cost wise, Starliner was the smartest deal that NASA has done in a long time. It's a fixed-cost contract, so every dollar over budget (and they're way over budget, is borne by Boeing, not the taxpayer. The largest risk is that the program is cancelled and they have to write off the cost of the contract and start again with another provider like Sierra Space (who are very close to being ready to fly cargo with a launch-vehicle-agnostic space plane). OTOH, I think Boeing would probably welcome the opportunity to stop bleeding money on this pig. Calhoun has been whining loudly about the fixed cost contract and how they'll never do another (like I'd offer them another. Stuff it Dave).

My argument cost-wise would be that Boeing failed to deliver according to the contract and so it is terminated. No further money will be paid, none will be returned. I don't know what the contract actually says, so who knows.

The more we toss around exaggerated terms like "Need" and "Rescue" the worse we look. At the moment it's a disgrace to Boeing. NASA appears to be doing its best to prevent it from becoming their and our disgrace too. I'll say it again: Nobody up there needs to be rescued. They need food and water, they don't need to go home. It's not like the CO2 scrubbers can't support all of them and if they don't get "rescued" somebody's going to have to draw straws on who steps out of the airlock (or rides Starliner down) It's inconvenient, that's all.

At the moment Starliner is clogging up a docking port that could be used by a Dragon to pick up Butch and Suni. The others are full, but if the situation was urgent they could do a lot of things, including sending them back on a Crew Dragon that's already there, but there is no urgency to sending them home beyond the fact that they need a change of clothes. They can't go back with Crew 8 who are already there because there are only enough seats on that Dragon for 4 astronauts (the 4 that flew up on it). The reason for a February return is because the plan would be for only 2 astronauts to fly up as Crew 9, stay for the full duration, and then fly back with those two and the Starliner crew together at the end of the crew 9 mission in February.

That's not urgency. That's not a "need", that's "I was going there anyway and if you want to wait I can give you a ride home." Meanwhile, Boeing needs to be working on a way to update the flight software so that they can detach that thing from the ISS without causing any chaos or damage. After a lot more whining it sounds like it will take about 4 weeks to do that.