If it were me, it wouldn't be family stopping me from going, it would be the thought of Boeing engineering.
Boeing Starliner commander Christopher Ferguson bows out of first crewed mission due to family commitments
Former NASA 'naut Christopher Ferguson has withdrawn as commander from the first crewed mission of Boeing's calamity capsule, the CST-100 Starliner. Three-time Space Shuttle flyer Ferguson joined the Boeing Starliner programme in 2011. He was assigned to the first crewed test flight of the CST-100 Starliner in 2018, only to …
COMMENTS
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Saturday 10th October 2020 07:55 GMT StrangerHereMyself
Re: Staying alive
Considering what Boeing's paying them I don't suspect them to be rock-stars of software engineering.
It's not necessarily their fault, Boeing is simply cutting corners to make more profit so the execs can buy their new mansions.
I believe this profit-focused approach could eventually sink the company.
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Saturday 10th October 2020 18:32 GMT Muscleguy
Walking your daughter down the aisle is one of the highlights of being a father to daughters. I’ve done in it and it remains a clear memory in my mind. My Father of the Bride speech was lauded by the celebrant as one of the best she had heard. I could do no less for my daughter. I had a couple of years to prepare for it and I’m not a stranger to public speaking.
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Friday 9th October 2020 16:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Pork Rockets
Aside from the dubious quality of Boeing's recent contraptions, maybe he just got tired of waiting for the blasted thing to be finished.
I'm glad we at least have SpaceX around, despite Musk's eccentricity, because the government sweetheart companies like Boeing dragging their heels and milking taxes are a big reason no one cares about NASA and it's programs in the US anymore. Hell the US lost the capability to get people into space on its own because of these guys demanding more and more money to redo things already achieved in the 70s. They got cut off and rightfully so.
"Oh you're going to the moon again? What, in like 30 years for $20 trillion?" GTFO.
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Saturday 10th October 2020 18:47 GMT Muscleguy
Re: Pork Rockets
Musk may be eccentric but he has the sense to let the engineers do their thing. Not only that he let and encouraged them to think big and lauded them when they succeeded. To watch the synchronised landing of the boosters from the mission launching starman aboard that car was both to see mesmerising mechanical ballet but bleeding edge tech in action.
It is hard to completely dislike a man who enabled that to happen. I thought he SciFi thing (cf Forbidden Planet for eg) for rockets to land on their fins was unachievable. Then Musk’s engineers proved me wrong. You just need the right computing and movement control and enough money to burn making it almost work then iterate to workings sometimes to working reliably. I’m happy to admit I was wrong.
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Monday 12th October 2020 09:42 GMT bombastic bob
Re: Pork Rockets
at least the NASA money BUYS SOMETHING (like a rocket). There is a *bit* of 'trickle down' benefit to making something _like_ a rocket, as opposed to _OTHER_ kinds of spending, which might as well be dumping public money into an incinerator... like pretty much anything with "subsidy" (or similar) in its name.
Also history shows many consequential products and scientific developments come out of the space program, from integrated circuits to "space food" (Tang doesn't count, it apparently existed before the 1st U.S. launch but gained fame for being included as a refreshment during John Glenn's Mercury flight). Although these things would probably exist without the space program, the use of such things BY the space program [and the otherwise prohibitive costs associated with them] often resulted in mass production and rapid drop in cost/price [particularly ICs]. PCs and cell phones COULD have taken a decade longer to show up in modern society were it not for the use of their core technology by NASA (and the U.S. military).
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Friday 9th October 2020 17:05 GMT stiine
similar
Malcolm Gladwell, in one of his books or talks related a story of an attorney negotiating a settlement between the U.S. government and some Pacific islanders who told them that he wouldn't be able to meet on the date that they picked because he was going to attend his daughter's play. I don't recall which one it was, but the U.S. State Department were furious (duh) but the islanders understood.