There's one thing I wonder...
Where did Chris Ferguson disappear? Boeing showed him everywhere - during launch, landing, recovery ops, press conferences... Haven't seen him since the investigation started.
It would be interesting to hear what he would say about this...
There's one thing I wonder...
Where did Chris Ferguson disappear? Boeing showed him everywhere - during launch, landing, recovery ops, press conferences... Haven't seen him since the investigation started.
It would be interesting to hear what he would say about this...
There's one thing I wonder...
Where did Chris Ferguson disappear? Boeing showed him everywhere - during launch, landing, recovery ops, press conferences... Haven't seen him since the investigation started.
It would be interesting to hear what he would say about this...
He is the only one not smiling in the photo above...
NASA didn’t really have requirements for certifying a crew vehicle over which they didn’t have full engineering control and responsibility. They had never done that before. They made this stuff up as they went along.
If they did that's just absurd. FAA has safety development standards (DO-178), Navy has various NAVAIR documents, Air Force uses Mil-Std documents and DO-178, etc. For NASA to say "well, we always had control before, and that was OK, but now we don't have control so we're not going to impose anything", well, first off, they probably DID impose some safety standard, and second, if they didn't, that's so ridiculous as to be borderline criminal negligence.
If we don't watch it, we are going to kill these babies. Everything that the Navy and the Air Force does is prohibitively expensive. Commercial airline development is prohibitively expensive. There just isn't that kind of money available for a space program.
If NASA micro-manages these programs they will become prohibitively expensive.
Both SpaceX and Boeing were given the latitude to make many decisions on their own in part in the hope of having more cost effective solutions. NASA has deliberately tried not to micromanage everything. That was part of the whole point of the effort.
The failings that Boeing has manifested are disappointing, but I don't think it's as bad as it is being made out to be. Although it's obvious that there are some real problems here, still the Starliner is close to working like it should. It would not have been able to land as cleanly as it did otherwise. (And yes I know there was a last minute alteration to the software.)
There's one thing I wonder...
Where did Chris Ferguson disappear? Boeing showed him everywhere - during launch, landing, recovery ops, press conferences... Haven't seen him since the investigation started.
It would be interesting to hear what he would say about this...Chris would say nothing... Gus Grissom was worried about the Apollo 1 spacecraft and told John Young so. When asked why didn't he speak-up, Grissom said "I don't want to lose my job"...
NASA didn’t really have requirements for certifying a crew vehicle over which they didn’t have full engineering control and responsibility. They had never done that before. They made this stuff up as they went along.
If they did that's just absurd. FAA has safety development standards (DO-178), Navy has various NAVAIR documents, Air Force uses Mil-Std documents and DO-178, etc. For NASA to say "well, we always had control before, and that was OK, but now we don't have control so we're not going to impose anything", well, first off, they probably DID impose some safety standard, and second, if they didn't, that's so ridiculous as to be borderline criminal negligence.
If we don't watch it, we are going to kill these babies. Everything that the Navy and the Air Force does is prohibitively expensive. Commercial airline development is prohibitively expensive. There just isn't that kind of money available for a space program.
If we don't watch it, we are going to kill these babies. Everything that the Navy and the Air Force does is prohibitively expensive. Commercial airline development is prohibitively expensive. There just isn't that kind of money available for a space program.
If NASA micro-manages these programs they will become prohibitively expensive.
Both SpaceX and Boeing were given the latitude to make many decisions on their own in part in the hope of having more cost effective solutions. NASA has deliberately tried not to micromanage everything. That was part of the whole point of the effort.
The failings that Boeing has manifested are disappointing, but I don't think it's as bad as it is being made out to be. Although it's obvious that there are some real problems here, still the Starliner is close to working like it should. It would not have been able to land as cleanly as it did otherwise. (And yes I know there was a last minute alteration to the software.)
(snip)
Both SpaceX and Boeing were given the latitude to make many decisions on their own in part in the hope of having more cost effective solutions. NASA has deliberately tried not to micromanage everything. That was part of the whole point of the effort.
(snip)
And, sorry, but I almost laughed when you said Starliner "is close to working like it should." Other than the latent fault that would have likely lost the vehicle (and crew if they were on board) if the original fault hadn't occurred. Other than the main chute that wasn't connected on the pad abort test article. How about not testing easily testable things? How expensive would it have been if Starliner had been lost? Look at the impact to SpaceX when DM-1 exploded, and that WAS a test.
Can somebody with industry knowledge describe more precisely what would/should have been involved in "full integration testing" between the Starliner and Atlas?
Coming from a software perspective, I cannot fathom why any interaction crossing such disparate hardware boundaries wouldn't have been tested with full production code running on full production hardware.
So please, disabuse – or abuse – me of my misunderstanding: does this report imply that Boeing did not bother to park an Altas V nav computer next to the Starliner and run through mission simulations? And barring that could they not have done so after stacking? (late IMO, but nonetheless an opportunity for 'fully integrated' testing)
There's one thing I wonder...
Where did Chris Ferguson disappear? Boeing showed him everywhere - during launch, landing, recovery ops, press conferences... Haven't seen him since the investigation started.
It would be interesting to hear what he would say about this...Chris would say nothing... Gus Grissom was worried about the Apollo 1 spacecraft and told John Young so. When asked why didn't he speak-up, Grissom said "I don't want to lose my job"...
If the astronauts Have Any Doubt about flying on starliner.. I hope they say something..
NASA dropped the ball with quality control on Apollo 1..
But Grissom, Chaffee, and White payed the ultimate price for silence..
I don't think anyone wants a repeat..
Man, this is just egg on NASA'S face. How in the world did they sign off from a Flight Readiness Review (or whatever it's called for a launch) when apparently ZERO system integration testing was done with the rocket hardware? Yeah, Boeing should have done it, but how in the world did NASA sign off on it?
This is gonna be a long, tough, slog to get through. But a necessary one.I'm not ready to blame NASA until we know what the test plans and results were that Boeing presented to NASA as compared to what they did. So the important thing to me is in this quote:QuoteBoeing said it followed all of the testing procedures NASA required of it prior to the Starliner test flight. The agency gave Boeing the green light to proceed after a flight readiness review prior to the mission.
What were the NASA requirements for testing and did Boeing really meet those requirements? Did NASA require integrated testing? (I hope so.) If so, did Boeing apply an "interesting" interpretation of what that entailed?
What level of detail is required in the reporting from a commercial vendor (I don't know.) There has to be some level of trust or it just becomes a NASA managed project. I'd love a review comparing the oversight of the two vendors, both voluntary (where the vendor asks for input or clarification) and involuntary (where NASA insists on drilling into the details that the vendor claims are "fine.")
And, sorry, but I almost laughed when you said Starliner "is close to working like it should." Other than the latent fault that would have likely lost the vehicle (and crew if they were on board) if the original fault hadn't occurred. Other than the main chute that wasn't connected on the pad abort test article. How about not testing easily testable things? How expensive would it have been if Starliner had been lost? Look at the impact to SpaceX when DM-1 exploded, and that WAS a test.
I think you are missing the forest for the trees. Nothing has indicated any failure of the design. In fact, in many ways the design (e.g., the prop system that was heavily over used) did quite well. What you are pointing out are PROCESS problems. Not testing the software. Not double checking the parachutes properly. Launch, navigation, maneuvering, on board systems, reentry, landing bags...all worked extremely well. Boeing will have to address those process issues - but that can all be done on the ground and will have an incredible amount of oversight now. And that is why I strongly suspect the next mission will be crewed. Remember, OFT was a test, soup to nuts. Boeing decided how much risk they were willing to take.
There can be NO confidence that even the successful elements were verified as correct.