Boeing abandons plans for crewed Starliner flight in 2023 Boeing has thrown in the towel on trying to launch Starliner to the International Space Station this year, and is now targeting the first half of 2024 for the calamity capsule's first crewed flight. This latest delay is due to continued fallout from issues identified in June, namely the flammability risk of some of the tape …
So why does America worship MBAs everywhere you go ?
- Hollywood, check how many movies portray the great american hero as a CEO ?
- Media, look at el Reg, just look at the percentages of how many names quoted here are ceos.
- TV Again if a ceo said it - its like jesus and mohammad and god said it.
I was staggered to read "half of the flammable tape has been removed, and in some areas where it can't be pulled off it'll have to be covered in a protective coating"
How can the tape not be pulled off, or failing that how can they not replace all relevant wiring? If true, sounds like far from being reusable, it's been carelessly engineered as single use firework, in the well evidenced US space tradition of complacency, short cuts, and dismissal of risk. You'd have thought the Americans would have learnt from the various Apollo and Shuttle accidents that every single detail counts, apparently not.
You have to hope the Starliner software and controls are better than that of the 737 Max.
I was thinking along similar lines re the tape that can't be accessed to be removed. If a new/extra coating is good enough for the inaccessible tape, then why isn't that good enough for the entire job instead of taking the time to replace the accessible tape?
It all sounds rather like a budge job with a side helping of porkies to me.
Any weight added to the capsule would reduce the payload capacity so replacing is better than adding. On the other hand the tape was probably not designed to be removed so removal could damage or stress whatever it is attached to so coating might be the only practical option. Also some taped items may not be directly accessible, so it is more practical to spray with fire retardant.
In the end the flight risk will never be zero so there is always a risk vs cost trade-off. Still a project management disaster, hopefully that is all it is.
Why yes, yes they are. Very good for aerodynamics :-)
Would you go to space in an Apple spaceship? based on their usual level of engineering, probably yes. But they are shite for repairs and maintenance :-)
I wonder what would happen if they built rockets too? Would the Apple Core Stage be reusable or would they expect you to buy a new one each time you used"broke" one :-)
NASA astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore should categorically refuse to go, and NASA needs to pull the plug...and right now. This fiasco has gone on long enough, and there already exists a large enough body count due to Boeing's total and complete incompetence and lack of anything remotely resembling "engineering".
Any "engineering" which may be happening here has, for far too long, smelled suspiciously like the same type of "engineering" which went into the design of the Boeing 737MAX.
The phrase "Boeing engineering" is the ultimate oxymoron, and an insult to engineers everywhere.
Boeing's time as a pioneer in Space exploration has come to an end and the faster it realizes the same the better it is for it's shareholders and the company. Time and Cost over runs in the Starliner project is a case in point. It's an elephant that has not adopted to the evolving technologies and is too bureaucratic to handle such projects. It was a great place but sadly no longer is
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