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#1320
by
meekGee
on 01 Jun, 2024 20:02
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It's all about the workforce - the standing army. Jim is correct. No matter what they are assigned to they get paid. If they stand in the corner and twiddle their thumbs, they get the same pay as problem solving at Boeing. It's a government job. Once you are in you are a permanent fixture. Productivity is not required. Show up and get paid. Welcome to government jobs. These people are civil servants and have a job for life without regard for what they do or do not do.
Not saying that at all. They would be doing other projects. Like the Launch Services Program, the NASA Commercial Crew program is matrixes. Few people are dedicated to strictly Starliner
It seems like everyone is "in violent agreement".
The yearly employee cost to NASA is constant, but some important tasks elsewhere in the "NASA Commercial Crew Program" are being pushed off and will have to be done and paid for later. There are either permanent cumulative delays to CCP or there will have to be a "plus up" to make up for lost time. That all the extra Starliner support can substitute for routine training seems to be a very remote possibility.
...or, there's a lot of systemic "underutilization" in the workforce.
When people railed that SpaceX achieved so much with such a comparatively small workforce only because they "overworked" their employees, it might simply have been a matter of calibration.
If these players want to stay in the game (I'm including both NASA and contractors) then they need to recalibrate.
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#1321
by
david1971
on 01 Jun, 2024 23:51
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If this launch doesn't happen on the 5th or 6th, what does the timeline for future opportunities look like?
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#1322
by
Yellowstone10
on 02 Jun, 2024 00:02
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If this launch doesn't happen on the 5th or 6th, what does the timeline for future opportunities look like?
According to someone at the press conference on Friday - if it's not off by the 6th, they have to replace the batteries on the flight termination system, which is about a 10-day process.
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#1323
by
Ben
on 02 Jun, 2024 21:51
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#1324
by
matthewkantar
on 03 Jun, 2024 00:00
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I skimmed thread 2 today looking for some specific details around cctcap award time and stayed for how different the view of the program was about a decade ago. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32438.1080
Roughly page 40 to 60 is when it was officially getting underway.
I’m a little shocked that the crew tower/arm was topped off nine years ago! Time flies. Though there are some takes that didn’t age well, such as “The capsule looks to be progressing on a very tight schedule.” About Starliner, there are also some very prescient takes by folks who still post regularly.
They say past results don’t guarantee future outcomes, but telling posts from almost a decade ago can be illuminating.
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#1325
by
Comga
on 03 Jun, 2024 23:38
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I skimmed thread 2 today looking for some specific details around cctcap award time and stayed for how different the view of the program was about a decade ago. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32438.1080
Roughly page 40 to 60 is when it was officially getting underway.
Thanks for that
Very amusing
What a ride these nine years have been!
I'm convinced that, five years from now, we will all see clearly that Boeing has developed the best manned LEO spacecraft that has yet flown. Spend some time really studying the details of its design and you'll see what I mean.
- Ed Kyle
But don’t be too embarrassed, Ed.
There’s a post quoting Gerst on the superiority of the Starliner design and Boeing management and corporates reputation.
Ah, the advantage of hedging even what looks like a sure bet!
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#1326
by
jimvela
on 04 Jun, 2024 02:38
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Thanks for that
Very amusing
What a ride these nine years have been!
It's interesting how time and events surprise us all. I went back and looked, I didn't post anything in particular about this in 2015.
I did learn my first forum post here was in 2006.
I also initially called the F9 a VTVL pipe dream with little chance of success. That didn't age well, did it?
I can say that I would never have believed in 2015 that in mid 2024 I'd be sitting here wondering how we made it this far without a single crewed Starliner launch.
My takeaway is that competition is good, you never know when the sure thing is about to start falling apart and the scrappy but nuts newcomer is about to change the nature of the business.
I hope this flight is successful and we get to see what this system can do.
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#1327
by
Robotical
on 07 Jun, 2024 01:12
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If you had predicted nine years ago that SpaceX would be on their second contract before Boeing did their crewed certification flight, you would have been committed.
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#1328
by
DanClemmensen
on 07 Jun, 2024 01:43
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Folks talking about starliner being abandoned… you are kinda forgetting that with the completion of this flight, all the heavy lifting is now done. A solid flight hardware design is on the books. Software works.
From here it’s flying the damn things and making money…and given the rocky path here, they will fly what they can to fill that financial hole. Not to do so would be stupid. Capital to get to this point is a done deal. So time to earn.
This assumes that Starliner-1 through Starliner-6 will be profitable. Do we know this? At Boeing's insistence, the contract was modified in about 2017 to commit Boeing to fixed price for these flights, and the flights were to commence in 2018, so that would be 2018 through 2023. There has been cumulative inflation of 25% from 2018 to 2024. I do not know how to predict inflation out to 2030.
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#1329
by
SoftwareDude
on 07 Jun, 2024 09:18
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Now that Starliner has delivered astronauts to the ISS and, I assume, for this discussion, Boeing will bring Butch and Suni home safely, I want to ask about the future. Does the Boeing business model support the idea of making Starliner into a commercial success?
Think about it: Boeing isn't an airline; its customers are airlines. Boeing does not directly service its customers' aircraft, though it consolidates a supply chain for parts. No marketing arm of Boeing sells a service that is anything like what it would take to commercialize Starliner. Boeing's business model would typically be to manufacture Starliner and sell it to some businesses that will launch people in it.
Now, Boeing still owns part of ULA, which provides a launch service. Wouldn't it make more business sense for ULA to take over Starliner once the bugs are worked out with Boeing manufacturing more Starliners?
Or do we expect Boeing to build an entirely new kind of business, selling and marketing a service that takes people where they want to go in space? What do people think about this?
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#1330
by
tea monster
on 07 Jun, 2024 10:10
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Just having two vehicles operational is good in case SpaceX suffers an incident and Dragon is grounded for a period of time. We aren't out of the astronaut business if this happens.
How much is Boeing charging for a mission? I doubt it's anywhere near what SpaceX is charging, though I don't have the figures. Maybe Boeing can charge the government for flying astronauts or payloads for other missions? Maybe this Hubble reboost/repair mission that they excluded SpaceX from. Possibly flights to whatever they replace the ISS with in time.
This is speculation, but did Boeing put their bid in to get the business of flying astronauts, or did they put the bid in to head off any potential competitors?
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#1331
by
Perchlorate
on 07 Jun, 2024 11:10
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How much is Boeing charging for a mission? I doubt it's anywhere near what SpaceX is charging, though I don't have the figures.
Where in the world did you get THAT idea??
[edit: if by "anywhere near," you meant "anywhere near as low as," I withdraw my snipe.]"The total award value of their Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts are worth up to $6.8 billion, with $4.2 billion for Boeing and $2.6 billion for SpaceX,..."
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#1332
by
Vettedrmr
on 07 Jun, 2024 11:15
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Does the Boeing business model support the idea of making Starliner into a commercial success?
Until someone comes up with a solid plan for somewhere for commercial crewed launches to go (Axiom is the only one that I consider viable at this point), I don't think there's a business plan for
anyone to make flights profitable enough to afford to build and maintain the kind of infrastructure needed for crewed flights. SpaceX is strong enough financially that they could absorb those costs, and make the crewed flights highlights or halo flights that occur occasionally.
Couple that with the fact that Starliner currently is being rated on Atlas V, and no plans to crew-rate another launcher, and those costs just get higher. It's a tough row to hoe.
Have a good one,
Mike
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#1333
by
seb21051
on 07 Jun, 2024 21:26
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Quote from: tea monster on Today at 10:10 am
"How much is Boeing charging for a mission? I doubt it's anywhere near what SpaceX is charging, though I don't have the figures."
FYI: At current prices, Boeing is charging $90 million per crew seat for Starliner, and SX is charging $65 million per seat for Crew Dragon. Also, Boeing has lost about $1.5 billion so far on this fixed price contract. I suspect the sooner they can get away from this thing, the happier they'll be. They have also stated that they will NOT seek any more fixed price contracts.
“Rest assured, we haven't signed any fixed-price development contracts, nor [do we] intend to,” Boeing's chief financial officer, Brian West, said in the company's October earnings call.Jan 9, 2024
https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2024/01/09/cautionary-tale-how-boeing-won-a-us-air-force-program-and-lost-$7b
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#1334
by
Jim
on 07 Jun, 2024 21:40
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Think about it: Boeing isn't an airline; its customers are airlines. Boeing does not directly service its customers' aircraft, though it consolidates a supply chain for parts. No marketing arm of Boeing sells a service that is anything like what it would take to commercialize Starliner. Boeing's business model would typically be to manufacture Starliner and sell it to some businesses that will launch people in it.
no, Boeing is not monolithic. The space side has nothing to do with the airliner side. In fact, most of the space side is heritage Hughes, Rockwell and MDC. They
Now, Boeing still owns part of ULA, which provides a launch service. Wouldn't it make more business sense for ULA to take over Starliner once the bugs are worked out with Boeing manufacturing more Starliners?
No, ULA has nothing to do with spacecraft, especially ones with crew. Spacecraft operations is nothing like launch vehicle operations.
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#1335
by
Jim
on 07 Jun, 2024 21:42
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This is speculation, but did Boeing put their bid in to get the business of flying astronauts,
They put in a bid to build a spacecraft and operate it.
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#1336
by
yg1968
on 08 Jun, 2024 00:37
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Folks talking about starliner being abandoned… you are kinda forgetting that with the completion of this flight, all the heavy lifting is now done. A solid flight hardware design is on the books. Software works.
From here it’s flying the damn things and making money…and given the rocky path here, they will fly what they can to fill that financial hole. Not to do so would be stupid. Capital to get to this point is a done deal. So time to earn.
This assumes that Starliner-1 through Starliner-6 will be profitable. Do we know this? At Boeing's insistence, the contract was modified in about 2017 to commit Boeing to fixed price for these flights, and the flights were to commence in 2018, so that would be 2018 through 2023. There has been cumulative inflation of 25% from 2018 to 2024. I do not know how to predict inflation out to 2030.
CCtCap always had fixed prices.
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#1337
by
tea monster
on 08 Jun, 2024 06:26
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Where in the world did you get THAT idea??
I was replying to someone else's question, so I don't think the snipe was justified in the first place.
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#1338
by
JSz
on 08 Jun, 2024 15:18
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Coming back to the Starliner tour video, I was surprised to see that there is somehow less space in the Starliner than in the Dragon. This is probably due to the way it was filmed, as the sizes of the two ships are rather similar.
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#1339
by
laszlo
on 08 Jun, 2024 15:49
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...One thing about SpaceX is that they never seem to have the same problem multiple times.
What never? No, never, What, never? Well, hardly ever.
Lost heat shield tiles, engine compartment fires, engines shutting down, engines not restarting...
