Boeing's Starliner launch pushed back again... to April 2023

The first crewed launch of Boeing's Starliner has been delayed again, this time being pushed back to April 2023 from an earlier planned launch date of February. The change came with little announcement from NASA, which tweeted out the new date as a scheduling update without any additional details. In an accompanying blog post …

[jollyboyspecial]

NASA's safety panel has expressed concerns too

737-MAX

Wouldn't you be concerned too?

[Pascal Monett]

"visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station"

Yeah, because there are so many spacecraft visiting the station these days . . .

[Andrew Newstead]

Re: "visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station"

The problem is that there are only so many docking ports available that Starliner can use and these may all be occupied for weeks at a time.

[DS999]

Re: "visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station"

Unintentional confirmation that aliens are also using it. You can't see cloaked ships but they still take up physical space on the ground when landed!

[iron]

Re: "visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station"

Cargo Dragon, Crew Dragon, Soyuz, Progress & Cygnus all visit the ISS on a regular basis.

Adding Starliner takes that number to 6, now is that maybe 4 higher than the number you thought was the case?

[BackToTheFuture]

Re: "visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station"

I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords and their visiting spacecraft traffic........

[Excused Boots]

"If and when Starliner carries crew to the ISS, it'll be flown by Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams, who will stay on the ISS for around two weeks."

Can't help but think that if I were 'Butch' or 'Suni' I might well be wondering if I had made the best career choices!

[TeeCee]

Apparently their pornstar names are Quentin and Phyllis, so that career's out.

[Andy The Hat]

At least it's not Bazza and Sunazza ...

Why can't they just use their damn names?

Nobody uses Jeff (Knobhead) Bezos' nickname ... I stand corrected ...

[spireite]

As previous article....

I said it'd never go, and i'm being proved right...

Come April '23, it'll be moved on the launch tractors again...... to the Smithsonian or similar...

[PhilipN]

Decision by panel

What could possibly go wrong?

[Lordrobot]

Push #1 for the SAFETY SPEECH... Push #2 for National Security...

This is what happens when you put a WOKE Career Politician in charge of AMTRAK of SPACE... But the two excuses you can always use are SAFETY and NATIONAL SECURITY. You should be questioning why this Starliner nearly tore the wall off the space station. Somebody made this latch mechanism in a machine shop someplace. Imagine being in the space station and this thing keeps banging on the wall causing the station to yaw.

$900 million to a defence contractor is merely a cost override to the taxpayer. It just gets pencilled in later when the DOD budget heads toward a Trillion dollars. Bill Nelson the frog-faced cracker Deliverance Kid all growed up needs to be FIRED with EXTREME Prejudice. Ever heard this cracker talk?

[Gene Cash]

Re: Push #1 for the SAFETY SPEECH... Push #2 for National Security...

Nurse! He's off his meds again!

[seven of five]

Re: Push #1 for the SAFETY SPEECH... Push #2 for National Security...

Nurse...

Heh...

Helllooooooo... Nurse

- Jacko (or was it Wacko?)

[stuartnz]

Scheduling conflict, for reals!

"Unfortunately, all our astronauts have discovered they are unavailable on the as-yet-unspecified date due to as-yet-unspecified prior commitments"

[seven of five]

Re: Scheduling conflict, for reals!

Jeeez, sorry, terribly busy being not-dead...

[xyz123]

BOEING is being paid by-the-day overages.

So they delay to April 2023, rake in 10s of millions, and delay to October 2023 then April 2024 etc etc etc

This is the sunk cost fallacy. Probably time to scrap the starliner altogether and go with whatever SpaceX has ready RIGHT NOW.

[iron]

So why do their account register an almost 1 billion dollar loss on Starliner?

You could at least keep your bullshit consistent with the article.

[Binraider]

Vapourware.

Although the phrase is unfortunate when it involves spam on the can.

[John Smith 19]

Boeing charged 2x what SX charged for their development programme

And look what that 100% more cash has delivered.

BTW Boeings supporters in Congress pushed for an early down select as a winner-takes-all deal, expecting Boeing to be the obvious winner. Bill Gerstheimer held out to retain 2 candidates.

The result. Competion that delivered at least one fully functioning crew and cargo delivery system, multiple cargo delivery systems (with SNC Dream Chaser still a possible with the first all-composite lifting body design to fly to orbit and back).

And then there's Boeing.

Fortunately the development programme used milestone payments. No achievement. No pay.

And boy have Boeing under-achieved. Youve got to wonder where did all that extra money they charged go?

[Anonymous Coward]

"American Lemon

Exploding over me...

American Lemon

No stars you see..."

[Sceptic Tank]

When the moon hits your pie like a big pIzza "I"

It's not my money they're spending, but what's on the moon that so much money is being spent to send a crowd of people there? Something about a Mars mission – not in our lifetimes unless radiation hardened humans can be cultivated. Rather let's clean up the space junk.