Press conference should be starting any time now:

https://www.youtube.com/live/AGOswKRSsH ... W7s9NqUfTU

They’re bringing it home un-crewed. Butch and Suni are going to wait for Dragon and Crew 9.

That's great, coming home in February; Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years at the Space Station; all with free lodging with meals included!

NASA made the right decision. Of course now NASA will need a ferry permit to get the Starliner back home.

They did. Bill Nelson mentioned the loss of the two shuttles and how they were not willing to take any chances with this flight. It makes me hopeful that they have actually learned and changed.

Yeah, we absolutely can't have another crew loss with all the red flags and unknowns before flight. Elon Musk to the rescue.

Yeah, we absolutely can't have another crew loss with all the red flags and unknowns before flight.

The sole purpose of the Boeing contract was to establish redundant crewed access to ISS.
Boeing has said they don't want follow on flights.
The current flights are on Atlas 5, a rocket that is no longer built. If this flight fails they have no way to do a make up flight the launch vehicle does not exist.

So even if Boeing wanted to do more they can't with this vehicle.

Since the fundamental reason for the contract to exist at all is now moot, why risk ANY more Starliner flights?
They should just let the Boeing, carcass of a once great engineering organization, slither off in peace and fade away...

Either that or launch the next Starliner with the CEO's family onboard.

This could be a marketing bonanza for the Boeing commercial aircraft division. "Our airliners only strand people for a few days at a time."

This whole deal is just sad. Did Nelson say when they will be able to jettison the Starliner?

I didn't hear specifically, but all along the issue has been how quickly can Boeing get a configuration file written, tested, and uploaded. The answer has been "September", so sometime late this coming month is the expectation.

And just to be precise, they aren't going to (and mustn't) simply jettison it. Having something like that floating around in roughly the same orbit as the ISS would be very bad. Besides, Boeing wants it back, so it's expected to do an automated re-entry and landing, essentially the same as with the crew, just without them. It will most likely work fine and end with no incidents.

As to the contract, Nelson at one point stressed in no uncertain terms that this was a Fixed Cost contract and no more money would be spent for the program. He elected not to speculate on whether Boeing would continue, but his tone and demeanor suggested to me that it was expected of them.

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/sta ... 7072734D5Z


Boeing Starliner to accomplish an uncrewed reentry to landing in the White Sands Missile Range. It’s fairly populated there, so if it makes a smoking hole the risk is somewhat reduced.

Chris C.

Hate auto-correct.

Fairly un-populated.

Elon should say "Sorry, rescue flights have a 200% surcharge" for all the screwing the government has given Elon, but it would be us taxpayers picking up the tab, which should go to Boeing.