And during the bidding process, Boeing argued that they were the ones with the 'real experience'. After, listening to Scott's litany of issues with Starliner, I think that NASA should be asking for a refund.
@Taladar2003 before the 787 they did several projects with a single development phase with integrated testing and simulation. They just lost the level of coordination that that takes.
It's so funny that they named the capsule Calypso. You know, like the nymph who using false promises and other ways of persuasion and seduction got Odysseus to stay on her island for seven years against his will...
@@davecrupel2817 There was a Sears Kenmore washing machine in the 90s called the Calypso. It did not wash clothes very well and was unreliable and was soon called the Collapso.
@@tonyduncan9852 Yes, the capsule was named after that Calypso. For comparison, the Dragon capsules Endeavour and Endurance are also named for famous exploration vessels...
I've been at a company where the CEO was an engineer. But he openly stated that he hated being an engineer so went into management... So hopefully people understand that being an 'engineer' is no panacea. One needs to have the qualifications of an engineer as well as the heart of an engineer to lead a company back towards a culture of safety and innovation.
Not liking (or even hating) a job does not mean that one is bad at that job. It also does not mean that one does not have the ‘qualifications’ or the ‘heart’ needed.
@@ernestgalvan9037 If you hate your job, why would 1. you take the time to learn your craft? 2. take the time to go above and beyond? The problem with Starliner is that it seems everybody has done the 'minimum' job. In fact all of Boeing in 2024 seems to be filled with employees doing the 'minimum' job.
You don’t need to be an engineer to do that. But you need someone on top who trusts and listens to their engineers. And your blue collar workers, too. A mindset that does not stop at an excel spreadsheet.
It's obvious NASA was trying hard to give Boeing every chance to save their reputation here but they finally came down on the side of caution and safety. Good call. It's a call current day Boeing would not make.
@OdinReactor Actually, if NASA didn't have a choice, Starliner would be coming down with the crew. However, NASA chose the most safest approach. NASA kept saying that they need to get Starliner back down on Earth and study the results more. They, repeatedly, said that the Starliner spacecraft is able to return the crew. Notice, Nelson said that he made the call. Hence, it was a mostly political decision in an election year.
@@arthurhamilton5222 lol. You are a joke. Boeing screwed up again, weirdos like yourself carry water for them inexplicably. Even the CREW wants to return on Dragon.
Agreed. Though if I was working on that contract it's got to be incredibly embarrassing to have this failure plastered through the media. Boeing isn't helping their reputation with the failures in their space and airplane divisions...
I thought the saying was, "You have can it fast, You can have it good or You can have it cheap but you can't have all 3". Seems Boeing now uses, "You can have it expensive, late and bad. Get all 3 for no cost plus"
@danteunknown2108 Chester is a solid guy, Cheetahs are all good in my books! Biden and Trump on the other hand are both complete embarrassments! The whole world is losing respect for that joke of a democracy, which is just a corrupt, thinly veiled oligarchy at this point 😆
I'm in the Aerospace industry and the word on the street with Boeing for years has been that this downfall of theirs has been decades in the making since they merged with McDonnel Douglas. Essentially in the merger, Boeing's original management, a lot of whom were engineers or had a mind for engineering ended up on the out one way or another (take your guesses as to how and why) and a lot of the money grubbing demons who were responsible for McDonnel Douglas's downfall ended up in the driver's seat. And over the years, Boeing's engineering and safety culture got eroded by the same parasites that killed McDonnel Douglas until we find ourselves where we are now.
This has been Americas down fall. Look at lead acid battery... They used to make great batteries 30 yrs ago but modern batteries are junk. Lead is dead.
What I read is they moved corporate from Washington to Chicago, and that severely took engineering out of management, and stopped tolerating frontline engineers from speaking up.
Boeing needs to do several things to get back on track: 1st clean out the entire executive suite and replace them with people who have an engineering background ( that is the old management system) 2nd go through the entire company and have everyone memorize and repeat daily the following mantra “Jack Welch is an idiot and his ideas are stupid.” His brand of management almost destroyed General Electric, ruined McDonnell Douglasand is the reason for many of Boeing present problems
Whilst the board are a contributing factor. The entire management structure needs a weeding. Along with the HR department. Board members don't make these sorts of decisions, they sit around drinking, smoking and asking for costs to be met. It's the management who makes critical technical decisions.
@@cjay2 Many DEI workers in the US are probably more qualified than others because they have had to study more, long before they got hired with DEI. They are also so far and between that they can't have much of an impact on the success of a company. And high management is usually not DEI anyway. Many political pundits use DEI workers as another word for black, which is racist
DEI is ok when considered last, after competense, as a tie breaker, but the fact that it gets some PR vibes, sometimes makes DEI prioritized over competence, and there lies the problem.
@@xWood4000 That blame-it-on-DEI canard more generally shows ignorance of how engineering projects get done and how decisions are made. So mainly people's ignorance, but also as you say some racism here and there.
@@Simon-dp2df - well, if it traffic lights, it will likely only affect 1-2 people. On the other hand, if you are responsible for programming systems that are supposed to pay out pensions, medicare, etc, millions of people will be affected. Maybe even leading to some people being kicked out of their homes for not being able to pay rent or mortgages.
@@Simon-dp2df Good news! Stop lights have a mechanical safety that essentially makes it so that if two conflicting directions would have a green at the same time, the entire system drops into its "safe mode" which is the stop sign mode where all directions are a flashing red light. So the odds of something really bad happening even if there's a major glitch or error are quite low!
I can just imagine the next set of astronauts: "You want us to fly on Starliner? No thanks, we'll wait for another ride." Except astronauts are inherently crazy and would take a 68 VW beetle to orbit if that was all that was on offer.
The more space channels appear on RUclips, the more I realize how much I appreciate your channel. No drama, no half truths or just plain lies. Thank you, it’s an oases in these times. Apologies for not identifying this sooner! Please continue, I will be following your content! 👍😊
Boeing have become a case study in how valuable an intangible asset like reputation really is, and what it can cost you if you neglect it by abandoning the chase for excellence in favour of chasing next quarter's bottom line. How the mighty have fallen.
And my response to Scott's suggestion to use said reputation as "ballast" was _"their reputation carries no weight anymore, that air inside the capsule is of more value presently!"_ 🥴
The stock market and capitalism are broken as a tool to counter the evil of "abandoning the chase for excellence in favour of chasing next quarter's bottom line." I'm not at all anti-capitalism but this is a big problem. Executives can hollow out a company for years and then suffer no consequences when the inevitable problems hit. The long time CEO of Boeing has had to leave but still gets to keep all the stock gains he made over the years PLUS a golden parachute.
They were taking so much of a risk with the new company SpaceX that they had to pick Boeing so they had one company they could count on to come through......
The doghouse thermal issues and Teflon seat swelling isn't a new thing. I worked both of those issues in the 80's and 2000. Remember the mantra - Test as you fly (including worse case scenarios). I should add that we changed the operational approach in operating on orbit to manage doghouse overheating - but that was a geo bird, can't do it easily here.
It seems to me that thermal management isn't impossible to simulate on the ground in a vacuum chamber. Electric heaters can be used. It wouldn't be exactly the same but clearly enough to get a significant safety margin.
@@dwightelvey645 Heat Transfer is simpler than a lot of engineering disciplines, both theoretically and practically. This is entirely on Boeing and their profit-maximizing doctrine.
In the Air Force (iaf) we had a saying, When in doubt, there is no doubt. Meaning the jet is not cleared for flight, go back and double check everything. In aviation, flight safety always comes first.
I mean all elements are "might be safe" but its when you have a high confidence in understanding the state of your system. Its why aircrafts have preflight checks and regular inspections. You want to understand the state of your system, both before, during and after use. Starliner is a case where the system is an uknown state and you cannot check its status accurately either. And by the lens of safety an unknown status means you cannot calculate the risk, and thus you have the assume the risk is maximal.
Well since there's already a mission called "CREW-9", it's correct to just mention the mission name. It's not like NASA was creating a brand new standalone mission _just_ to bring Butch & Sunny home.
13:56 I guess just a slip of the tongue, the loss of Columbia happened in 2003. I honestly appreciate the cautious approach by Nasa, unlike they did twice with the Shuttle. They might have learned the lesson after all, even if Starliner might have been safe enough to bring Sunny and Butch back
@@wonjez3982 In theory they could have rushed Atlantis for a rescue mission, although, its success probability was to be confirmed. Still, never really looked into solving the foam shedding issues, despite the wake up call that several missions were, like STS-27 and STS-112
@@wonjez3982 "Was there even a backup option for columbia? They didn't go to the iss" Not to the ISS. If I remember correctly, Columbia was heavier than the other Shuttles. It could reach the ISS from launch, but would be limited to a smaller payload, making it impractical; as a result it didn't have an ISS-compatible airlock. And on its last mission, it wouldn't have had the delta-V to reach the ISS.
@@daviddesrosiers1946That would be nice. But it's a fixed cost contract. 4.2G$ for development including some flights. This comes all out of Boeings own pockets... But I'm sure the DOJ will step in and award some nice and lucrative contracts to even it out for Boeing.
8:46 Surprised to hear that there isn't spacesuit compatibility across Dragon and Starliner, given the lessons learned from CO2 scrubber incompatibility between LM and CM on Apollo 13.
Yeah, that struck me immediatly as unwise/safe! The essential needs are likely 90+% the same utilities, so common connects should be possible even with older current ISS suits, or adapters supplied. Because there are also the Soyuz suits to consider for escape! If/when emergencies occur, time and options will be limited. Hopefully the Chinese dont have the same issues, as they likely standardised on one recent design. Not that it will help the ISS, unless they followed Russian designs exactly?🤔
Every time I hear the phrase "...for what was supposed to be an 8-day mission", in my head I always hear,"... a three hour tour!... a three hour tour!"
Watching boeing struggle to get a single crew capsule to the ISS and back with constant delays and setbacks alongside Dragon is like watching a 1920s motorvehicle pit up against a ferrari
@@kolbyking2315One is consistently repeating and reusing their orbital vehicles and launches and the other can't get out of bed without breaking its foot.
@@jamesmurphy449what rocket is burning thousands of tons of toxic fuels that are also somehow expensive? Unless you mean somehow one of them is using a hypergolic main stage?
Nah, the lynch mob might not like it but Starliner isn't that bad. Starliner satisfies the same requirements for NASA as Dragon 2. Boeing mismanagement has made a mess of things but fundamentally the vehicles do much the same job.
No, NASA should be held responsible for getting go fever and launching a known broken vehicle. These decisions had nothing to do with Boing. NASA looked at the helium leaks and thought, "this is fine". Previously they looked at SRB burn through and thought, "this is fine". They also looked at large ice sheets impacting the shuttle and thought, "this is fine". Back in the day they made a pure oxygen capsule and fitted it out with flammable material and thought, "this is fine". Each time they claimed they are suffering from go fever and from now on it is aspirin for everyone involved.
The most sensible, factual and contextual breakdown of this entire episode, bar none. No drama, no politics, no scaremongering and no profiting by clicks, likes, subs, audience numbers or cash.
"You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?" - Rockhound, _Armageddon (1997)_
@@wizzyno1566design and testing is most of the money. It's why they cost so much to launch. They have to make up for the cost to design and test them.
Thats a good point, you'd think that by the number of launches from China covered by Scott, people should be more aware of the progress they have made. Their Space Program is not a cheap Walmart knockoff of the Soviet era, they are rapidly takeing it to the next level.
Probably the best thing that could’ve happened from the crews perspective. It’s most definitely the last time these brave men and women fly to space. Might as well have an extended stay for the final mission of their career. Love ya butch and sunny.
NASA didn't even have the respect to call the astronauts by their full names. This is disgraceful. These are not just "Two American kids/Doin the best they can" They aren't Jack and Dianne. Neil didn't land on the Moon, Neil Armstrong did. John wasn't the first American in orbit, John Glenn was. You can Google their names. Google "Butch" and see what happens. NASA has given these expert, highly trained, incredibly proficient astronauts a grave slight. They've been treated as if there is nothing special about who they are, what they have gone through to get where they are, or how they'll be (not) remembered in the future. Shame on NASA.
I mean it’s killed more than just its reputation. At least one whistleblower directly, the other probably indirectly (stress could have made infection more likely/worse) and not to mention a couple 737 max plane fulls of passengers
My understanding is that during the shuttle era much or all of the support for the shuttle astronauts was still from the shuttle, not from the ISS. For example, shuttle fuel cells generated water as a byproduct, and while the ISS reduced the load on the fuel cells I don't think it eliminated it. The shuttle could also carry plenty of food for it's crew. So... not exactly fair to compare 13 astronauts on ISS+shuttle to 12 astronauts being supported soley by the ISS.
So what are butch and sunny doing while at the ISS? do they have mission tasks or are they just sweeping floors/walls/ceilings and making quesadillas for the other astronauts?
Well if Boing can't keep it up with some once no-name company even with all savings in maintenance + quality control, you know something is really going wrong over there.
A company has to prioritize ... and some prioritize management bonuses and shareholder dividends. What has this "maintenance + quality control" ever done for us? This child of a rich dude has an MBA bought at an elite university, surely he knows more than these peasant engineers.
That's why it's important to distinguish between areas where cost cutting is acceptable, and areas where cost cutting on that area... has knock-on effects that make everything else more expensive enough that you end up spending MORE overall money, even tho you saved money on the one thing you cut costs on. Quality control, employee retention, and preventative maintenance are three of many of those things you never try to save money on if you actually know anything about how to get things done (meaning you know more than how to balance the books).
@@loacommander The Boeing problems are management problems, greedy idiots at the top are very much a home-grown American male problem even if racists like to blame it on minorities.
@@LuciFeric137 What could they have done though on short notice? Send up a rocket with the missing tiles and some glue perhaps? Would have required space walks and other things, I guess in hindsight they could have been saved.
You forgot to mention that Boeing is also heavily critisized for its work on the SLS. Just another thing where Boeing's "reputation" is suffering greatly. Not that Boeing have ANY reputation left (except for not being able to deliver on time and in good order).
Commercialism. Competition. Capitalism. Proprietary rights. Dissimilar redundancy. All seemingly good reasons why compatibility was not a requirement in NASA's contracts. Seemingly they just never factored in this kind of scenario.
Apollo 13 O2 systems differed between the lunar lander and the capsule. Had to make-shift adapters (fortunately successfully) to save the 3 astronauts. Did we learn from this? Such dumb-asses . . .
It's not just Boeing that's not run by engineers anymore, it seems like no corporation is run by the people who actually know how to do the job. We should probably consider doing something about that.
nasa is run by politicians, nasa killed seven astronauts twice over with their shuttle management. Nasa also ok'ed the Starliner for this launch. nasa is the problem and should be cut from the taxpayers money
Part of the problem is the home school, micro school and 'unschool' situation IMO. It's only going to get worse. Scary. Vouchers for so called school choice are also an issue.
What? Boeing has not been an engineering company. Founder was an industrialist. Even first CTO had no engineering degree. I think he was a boat captain.
I know Scott indicated he doesn't believe that Starliner is a 'deathtrap'. But, if there are further thruster problems, which is entirely plausible, that could mean that Starliner misses its re-entry insertion point, or doesn't re-enter in the right orientation, or could end up in an uncorrectable tumble. So, while it may not be a deathtrap yet, it could certainly turn into one very rapidly. It will be interesting to see how Dreamchaser performs. If does well, that will be the last straw before Starliner is dumped entirely.
Dreamchaser is a cargo vehicle. It doesn't have the capability to carry crew. NASA see having two American crew capsules as extremely important (an aim I agree with), so I'd be shocked if they abandoned Starliner
Worst case scenario is that further manoeuvring thrusters fail during the undocking until the craft is left unable to get into an attitude where it could fire the deorbit thrusters effectively. NASA would never recover if there was days or weeks worth of footage of Butch and Sunni slowly running out of life support with no way to either get back to the ISS or down to Earth.
Ballast is meant to provide balance, a neutral buoyancy. This is more of a dead-weight designed to make something sink when it should've been floating.
They can put the Being suits into Starliner. If Starliner makes it back safely, so will suits, if Starliner fails, then I don't see much future use for the suits either. :D
I think they do need to keep the suits in case starliner failed during departing and hit ISS, so they can at least wear something before strapping themselves into dragon cargo place.
I’ve said this before too. Boeing should be financially responsible for every mission and crewed flight that is being delayed or complicated by their failure.
Interestingly, I looked up the linear thermal expansion coefficient of Teflon, and it is typically more than 50% higher than nylon and about 10 times greater than stainless steel. Since the thruster doghouses were getting significantly hotter than expected, this could explain why the teflon in the valves were popping out and interfering with the flow of propellent to the thrusters.
2 active spacecraft? As long as Starliner is not fully functional there seem to be only one (aka Crew Dragon). Others are lining up in the pathway created by SpaceX, but Starliner does not appear as such.
Don't forget Soyuz. Crude, antiquated, but incredibly reliable - very Soviet in its design philosophy. Of course having to bring someone back via the Russians would be even more humiliating for Boeing than having to use SpaceX.
What do you get when you cross Lost in Space with Gilligan's Island? A joke about Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission.. "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty astronaut, the Skipper brave and sure..."
They already made that. It was called _Far Out Space Nuts_ and ran for 15 episodes in 1975. The crew was almost, but not quite as incompetent as Boeing. "I said 'lunch' not 'launch!'"
@@jamesogden7756 everything comes down. That's not the hard part. Boeing has a hard time with getting things down while still fully assembled and in a way that keeps it fully assembled once down.
Glad that NASA is making the right decision here. I read a rumor that NASA might pay Boeing to send Starliner up on a cargo mission to properly certify it for use.
@@kirishima638 It would be coming out of their crew flight millstone payments, so the total contract amount ($5.1B) wouldn't increase. Just changing one crew flight into a cargo flight out of the six contracted.
@@dannyarcher6370No. I’m autistic, and I got the joke just fine. Humour is diminished when insisting on accuracy (unless the insistence is itself part of the joke, which can sometimes be even funnier)
It seems like it might be a good idea to have a dragon on standby for rescue operations, that's ready to launch within 30 days or something. I'm curious what the complications and cost of something like that would be. Might be an interesting topic for a video
They've got plenty of Falcon 9 boosters laying around, and a 2nd stage shouldn't be hard to source. However I seem to remember that Elon has said they aren't going to make any more Crew Dragon capsules. So there aren't any spares laying around to build a standby rocket. In future such things will be done by Starship.
@@tarmaque There are 4 Dragons with a 5th coming online in early 2025. There will usually be one or two sitting around between missions but it seems likely there's some kind of refurbishment going on. That'll also depend on the pace and timing of private missions - and on which are configured for a private mission with no docking collar. Right now one is set up for Polaris Dawn and another will soon be fitted with the cupola for Fram2. It's unlikely one Dragon can be kept on standby just for NASA (the $$$!) but perhaps a "virtual one" could be kept in readiness amongst the fleet rotation. F9s will not be a problem, there are a couple at the Cape every week ready to launch. Sure, the ones designated for crewed launches must get special attention but if urgently needed any booster in the fleet will do.
As someone who also had someone "just stay for a night or two" and then still having them crash on you couch months later, I hope they send up enough chips and beers for Butch and Suni...
As someone with family who works at NASA and friends at Boeing I developed while working as an A&P in Seattle (all while renting a room from a old friend who worked with me in offshore seismic in the 80's who's now a senior IT w/ Boeing) I got a lot of underground knowledge of how the corporate types were destroying the engineering culture at Boeing. So I'm not surprised at what has happened the last few years. I even ran around doing cool hobby stuff with guys from Boeings military division laser development group and they were saying it was a clown show from management so I just expected stuff like this to be coming around.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip That started from this tropic port Aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailin' man, The Skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day For a three hour tour, A three hour tour. That turned into eight months....
The "Floor" for spacecraft is Soyuz, the rusted out 71 beetel with milk crates for seats, rope for seatbelts and has bailing wire welds, vs Star Liner, the 84 VW Combi-van of the creepy Test pilot turned accountant that is your Great Grandnma's Ex who'd tell you Ketchup is your in-flight meal and if you want seatbelts that i'll be 99$ per belt.
Launch day footage was a perfect sign of the program. When we got to watch the close out crew and they couldn't even wear the safety gear correctly, let alone use it. It just showed how far boeing and nasa have fallen. Prior roll outs of the capsule with safety parts falling off landing on the road. Massive delays. Bloated expenses. It's just a mockery of its former glory. How's that new spacesuit coming. SLS is in the same situation. I mean it's not even newly designed tech, it's a majority of reused items designed by the former generation, when nasa, boeing etc were great and actually shined.
Boeing firing their senior engineers has come back to bite them. As a tenured and senior software engineer with experience across many industries and companies I can tell you that a good senior engineer is worth more than 10x a junior one, and in fact a junior often is a negative contributor and it's a part of the responsibilities of a senior to help make them productive. Without the seniors you get planes falling out of the sky and unusable rockets and re-entry vehicles and worse.
That kinda reminds me of Apollo 13 and the filters being different. Also just by looking at them the suit connections are very different so not sure if adapting the capsule (possible using an adapter) could be the easier option.
You have to understand while the immediate goal is to get people and equipment into (and out of) space, the long-term goal is to improve all these systems used for space travel. And the fastest way to do that is to encourage lots of different companies to come up with lots of different designs. So you can rapidly test out the pros and cons of all the different designs in parallel. If you mandate everyone has to use the same design, then yeah you get compatibility. But innovation and technological progress stagnates.
I know this is a joke, but unfortunately, without reliable reaction control thrusters, a Starliner may collide with ISS during docking so even a trash disposal mission is unsafe to ISS and its occupants.
I could see them loading some dunnage equal to the astronauts weight , but , most trash loadings are things they DO want to Burn Up. I don't think they'd risk losing science projects either.
It's just like college; after the government money started flowing in, prices and profits skyrocketed, quality of output was no longer important to keep them high so it was entirely dismissed altogether.
In sweden on school complained over cost ,they were paid a sum and the schoolboard desided to share the money with the investorsand themselves and not to any related to the school - was in the newspapers and they cried crocodiletears but nothing will happen and no rent will be payed by the partipitiants -Guess the sharks were hungry and smelled incoming fresh blood
Except other nations also put money into their universities, and their prices do not skyrocket and their quality does not suffer. This is a strictly US and UK problem.
The reason you probably don't want to just lay down in the bottom of Crew Dragon is 4.2gs of deceleration and the the jolts and jerks of parachute deployment and splashdown. Bob Behnken described the parachute deployment as "being hit in the back of the chair with a baseball bat"
So the test flight crew was simply incorporated into the ISS rotation and schedules were shifted around. Remember, at any point a Soyuz or Dragon could be used to get them back home. If I’m not mistaken, a Soyuz is always kept docked at the ISS as an emergency lifeboat.
I distinctly recall during the hatch opening feed that the castaways inquired about if there were spare undergarments awaiting them, because there weren't any onboard. The response was that they have what they're wearing and that's it, because it was only meant to be a 3h (or so) tour.
Actual NASA had a last minute switch in the cargo manifest. The ISS critically needed a part for its urine reprocessing systems, so NASA switched out some of the cargo for that part, however the cargo on Starliner was the crew's personal supplies. Since then Cygnus has launched and brought extra supplies for butch and suni
@@philb5593 Thanks for the update. I wouldn't have known otherwise. It kinda reminds me of a scene in the movie Dark Star, which is kind of a "space is not fun" type of semi-comedy.
I was thinking I did not know what Suni's age was so it is not an issue for her now, but what if a woman astronaut were to get a visit from Aunt Flo and no products for women there.
@@user-wz1qo1cn3i There are younger women up there. I'm sure there are spare bandoleers of girl ammo. The fighting comes when the TP gets low and nobody will spare a single square.
@@CorwynGC Yeah sure it was that and not politicians demanding there be no "rescue mission" by the guy funding the opposite party in an election year. The fact that the convoluted plan to keep them in space for another 6 was unanimous shows not going back on Starliner was an easy decision. There were over 100 NASA people who reviewed the data and not a single one thought Boeing was the right option.
It's interesting that these Capsule's all have the same Docking Port and yet the Astronaut's Space Suits have no adaptive compatibility to "plug-into" other capsules. Also, the Dragon Capsule's were designed to carry up to 7 Astronaut's if needed. It seems like they could carry more than Two if they were adding Two for the return trip.
Initially designed, and they could be adapted to be set up that way, but that doesn't mean that all the detailed design for such adaptations has been done, never mind signed off on. It's not just a case of throwing more seats in, the whole life support system needs to be rated for 7 people, and I don't think the one they currently use is.
Docking ports have to be universal because different spacecraft have to dock. Suits don't have to be because (typically) each suit is only used in one type of spacecraft. You actually want different designs for things like suits. Lots of different companies try lots of different things. You get real-world data on the pros and cons of the different systems (and on what designs to avoid). And everyone's designs gradually improve based on lessons learned. If they'd made this decision earlier, they might've had enough time to come up with adapters to plug the Starliner suits into the Dragon capsule.
NASA limited it to four seats so that a safe seat angle can be used, necessary for safety on a hard emergency landing. Flying back with six people is more dangerous for the two "stowaways" because of less than ideal seating as they are basically strap-in cargo. Seven would be even worse.
@@solandri69 SpaceSuit connections should be adaptable to other capsules for the same reasons the docking port is. Lives may depend on that someday. It's like they developed a square CO2 scrubber to fit into a round hole. Oh wait, that sounds familiar somehow ?
@@agsystems8220 Yea, I remember hearing that NASA wanted different seat Angles on Dragon to improve survivability in case of a hard water landing, so they reduced it to 5 seats to meet those demands. Also, I guess they use the extra space for "hauling the mail". The complete incompatibility between space suit adaptability may bite NASA in the ars one of these days imho. They learned that lesson w/ Apollo 13.
I'm a registered space agency director. Trust me, nothing's difficult here: Just ctrl+S and see if the capsule does work. And even if you didn't save before hand, what's the worst which could happen? You'll just have to buy two new random Kerbins, give them an haircut, and voilà, they are kerbonauts.
It's kind of a weird silver lining, Butch and Sunni can join the ranks of very few people that have flown in 4 different spacecraft.
Cool! Who else? Some Apollo astronaut perhaps? Gemini, Apollo Command Module, The lunar lander and did some of them fly with the Shuttle?
John Young flew those four. Maybe nobody else. Walked on the moon with Apollo 16.
Didn't Sunni originally train for Dragon but moved to Starliner?
@@Trek001 I think you're correct?
Also, Sunni's going to be the American astronaut with the second most time in space. (Behind Peggy Whitsen)
What burns me up is that Boeing got more money for their capsule than SpaceX got and they still screwed the pooch.
it’s cause the government apparatus has a hard time stepping away from historical partners. One reason I really hope the pentagon embraces Anduril
And during the bidding process, Boeing argued that they were the ones with the 'real experience'. After, listening to Scott's litany of issues with Starliner, I think that NASA should be asking for a refund.
And threw in another 1.7 billion of their own as a loss to boot. "McBoeing: When you don't need the job done right."
Orchestated boondoggle
its called CORRUPTION...ask yourself, which Senators and Members of Congress have Boeing stock....?
So, it seems whether they want it or not, Boeing now has an iterative design process. It's just... not rapid.
Every design process is iterative, some people just refuse to acknowledge that fact.
@Taladar2003 before the 787 they did several projects with a single development phase with integrated testing and simulation.
They just lost the level of coordination that that takes.
@@bensavedbychrist well, they are learning a hard lesson in fixed price contracts. They should have copied SX.
@@arthurhamilton5222 they hate fixed price contact and said want to avoid that type of contacts
@@arthurhamilton5222 I wouldn't say copied but learned from, absolutely.
It's so funny that they named the capsule Calypso. You know, like the nymph who using false promises and other ways of persuasion and seduction got Odysseus to stay on her island for seven years against his will...
They seriously named it Calypso?!?!😂 Are you fvcking kidding me?!
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten the name. Heh... that was a little prophetic, wasn't it?
@@davecrupel2817 There was a Sears Kenmore washing machine in the 90s called the Calypso. It did not wash clothes very well and was unreliable and was soon called the Collapso.
Wasn't it also the name of Jacques Ives Cousteau's yacht? (Boomer test).
@@tonyduncan9852 Yes, the capsule was named after that Calypso.
For comparison, the Dragon capsules Endeavour and Endurance are also named for famous exploration vessels...
I've been at a company where the CEO was an engineer. But he openly stated that he hated being an engineer so went into management... So hopefully people understand that being an 'engineer' is no panacea. One needs to have the qualifications of an engineer as well as the heart of an engineer to lead a company back towards a culture of safety and innovation.
Not liking (or even hating) a job does not mean that one is bad at that job.
It also does not mean that one does not have the ‘qualifications’ or the ‘heart’ needed.
Especially in the space industry
@@ernestgalvan9037 If you hate your job, why would 1. you take the time to learn your craft? 2. take the time to go above and beyond?
The problem with Starliner is that it seems everybody has done the 'minimum' job. In fact all of Boeing in 2024 seems to be filled with employees doing the 'minimum' job.
You don’t need to be an engineer to do that. But you need someone on top who trusts and listens to their engineers. And your blue collar workers, too. A mindset that does not stop at an excel spreadsheet.
@logicae4096 people do jobs to pay bills not for the love of the work. Maybe if they had high standards at boeing this wouldn't be a problem.
It's obvious NASA was trying hard to give Boeing every chance to save their reputation here but they finally came down on the side of caution and safety. Good call. It's a call current day Boeing would not make.
@OdinReactor
Actually, if NASA didn't have a choice, Starliner would be coming down with the crew. However, NASA chose the most safest approach. NASA kept saying that they need to get Starliner back down on Earth and study the results more. They, repeatedly, said that the Starliner spacecraft is able to return the crew. Notice, Nelson said that he made the call. Hence, it was a mostly political decision in an election year.
@@arthurhamilton5222 lol. You are a joke. Boeing screwed up again, weirdos like yourself carry water for them inexplicably. Even the CREW wants to return on Dragon.
Agreed. Though if I was working on that contract it's got to be incredibly embarrassing to have this failure plastered through the media. Boeing isn't helping their reputation with the failures in their space and airplane divisions...
so Boeing stuffs up and 2 astronauts miss out on their mission. Make Boeing pay for the space x flight.
Yeah, why _IS_ NASA giving boeing so much slack ???
Bit of a delay, but they at least got an upgrade to business class
ok this comment wins lol
Did they get a voucher for a sandwhich?
Bazinga.
@@fxzn you're easily impressed huh
You gotta be a bot or a democrat @T.E.S.S.
"Boeing's reputation" - best joke of the year so far from Mr Manley here :D
I was thinking garbage just before he said that, so basically the same.
Scott's set up for the punchline was beautiful.
Yes, I guffawed at that one. Well said
Boeing's slogan in 2024: "Profits before People"
Yes. I love how delicately he said "Pack it with bags of shit."
I thought the saying was, "You have can it fast, You can have it good or You can have it cheap but you can't have all 3". Seems Boeing now uses, "You can have it expensive, late and bad. Get all 3 for no cost plus"
Boeing has become a national embarrassment
Not compared with the Orange One.
@@tonyduncan9852 You must mean Biden
No definitely the Cheeto guy. How's that Kool aid? @@BarrGC
@danteunknown2108 Chester is a solid guy, Cheetahs are all good in my books! Biden and Trump on the other hand are both complete embarrassments! The whole world is losing respect for that joke of a democracy, which is just a corrupt, thinly veiled oligarchy at this point 😆
So is Musk
I'm in the Aerospace industry and the word on the street with Boeing for years has been that this downfall of theirs has been decades in the making since they merged with McDonnel Douglas. Essentially in the merger, Boeing's original management, a lot of whom were engineers or had a mind for engineering ended up on the out one way or another (take your guesses as to how and why) and a lot of the money grubbing demons who were responsible for McDonnel Douglas's downfall ended up in the driver's seat. And over the years, Boeing's engineering and safety culture got eroded by the same parasites that killed McDonnel Douglas until we find ourselves where we are now.
So now it's McDonnel Douglas's Boing
This has been Americas down fall. Look at lead acid battery... They used to make great batteries 30 yrs ago but modern batteries are junk.
Lead is dead.
What like MBAs are gonna think engineers know more than they do?
What I read is they moved corporate from Washington to Chicago, and that severely took engineering out of management, and stopped tolerating frontline engineers from speaking up.
Good summary. McDonnel Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money.
Boeing needs to do several things to get back on track: 1st clean out the entire executive suite and replace them with people who have an engineering background ( that is the old management system) 2nd go through the entire company and have everyone memorize and repeat daily the following mantra “Jack Welch is an idiot and his ideas are stupid.” His brand of management almost destroyed General Electric, ruined McDonnell Douglasand is the reason for many of Boeing present problems
Whilst the board are a contributing factor. The entire management structure needs a weeding. Along with the HR department.
Board members don't make these sorts of decisions, they sit around drinking, smoking and asking for costs to be met.
It's the management who makes critical technical decisions.
@@cjay2Folks aren’t even bothering with the hoods anymore.
@@cjay2 Many DEI workers in the US are probably more qualified than others because they have had to study more, long before they got hired with DEI. They are also so far and between that they can't have much of an impact on the success of a company. And high management is usually not DEI anyway. Many political pundits use DEI workers as another word for black, which is racist
DEI is ok when considered last, after competense, as a tie breaker, but the fact that it gets some PR vibes, sometimes makes DEI prioritized over competence, and there lies the problem.
@@xWood4000 That blame-it-on-DEI canard more generally shows ignorance of how engineering projects get done and how decisions are made. So mainly people's ignorance, but also as you say some racism here and there.
05:06 - "Minor issues get ignored and misunderstood and they turn into major disasters". That's basically my job description at a software company.
Well if you make games what's the worst that can happen...
But if you program traffic lights...😅😅😅
@@Simon-dp2df - well, if it traffic lights, it will likely only affect 1-2 people. On the other hand, if you are responsible for programming systems that are supposed to pay out pensions, medicare, etc, millions of people will be affected. Maybe even leading to some people being kicked out of their homes for not being able to pay rent or mortgages.
@@Simon-dp2df Good news! Stop lights have a mechanical safety that essentially makes it so that if two conflicting directions would have a green at the same time, the entire system drops into its "safe mode" which is the stop sign mode where all directions are a flashing red light. So the odds of something really bad happening even if there's a major glitch or error are quite low!
@@Lessinath yes, but... that safety system isn't mechanical, it is itself a computer running software that someone wrote
That's my job description and i do social and health policy evaluation :\
Early 2023, the Columbia disaster happened? Listen, it still feels like just last year to me, too…
Came to the comments looking for this
I can just imagine the next set of astronauts: "You want us to fly on Starliner? No thanks, we'll wait for another ride." Except astronauts are inherently crazy and would take a 68 VW beetle to orbit if that was all that was on offer.
The more space channels appear on RUclips, the more I realize how much I appreciate your channel. No drama, no half truths or just plain lies. Thank you, it’s an oases in these times. Apologies for not identifying this sooner! Please continue, I will be following your content! 👍😊
no terrible AI voiceovers for an entire video of stock footage clips.
no false claim click bait thumbnails....
Absolutely correct, always great and well researched content from a very clever guy, and I'm not just saying that cos I'm scottish 😅
agreed , trust nothing untill scott has has his say
@@stevensmith797Or Tim Dodd.
Absolutely!!!
Remember when Boeing was run by Engineers?
And then greed happen
This is how the rest of us feel about Boeing and Airbus. The Boeing might... MIGHT... be safe, but we'll take an Airbus carrier, thank you.
They’re Boeing in name only.
without diversity who will stab white children at taylor swift concerts?
It never was. They bribe their way to govt contracts
Boeing have become a case study in how valuable an intangible asset like reputation really is, and what it can cost you if you neglect it by abandoning the chase for excellence in favour of chasing next quarter's bottom line.
How the mighty have fallen.
To be frank that really started when management decided that lying to your customer (a.k.a. marketing) could replace actually making good products.
It's a downfall nearly 20 years in the making.
Bu…bu…but there’s no such thing as bad publicity!!
And my response to Scott's suggestion to use said reputation as "ballast" was _"their reputation carries no weight anymore, that air inside the capsule is of more value presently!"_ 🥴
The stock market and capitalism are broken as a tool to counter the evil of "abandoning the chase for excellence in favour of chasing next quarter's bottom line." I'm not at all anti-capitalism but this is a big problem. Executives can hollow out a company for years and then suffer no consequences when the inevitable problems hit. The long time CEO of Boeing has had to leave but still gets to keep all the stock gains he made over the years PLUS a golden parachute.
NASA: Please go ahead and stir the tanks.
Starliner: Agh…. I think we’ll skip that. Send an Uber.
Throwback!
I wish Sierra's Dreamchaser had won that crew contract instead of Boeing.
Dreamchaser was great
They were taking so much of a risk with the new company SpaceX that they had to pick Boeing so they had one company they could count on to come through......
@@AdamMi1 Is.
@@skysurferuk you're right, it is great
@@bbeen40 That worked out well. /s 😉
At this point Boeings Rep has negative mass.
They want to fuel an FTL drive with that mass or what?
Send them to the ISS
They will have to cheat using Alt+F12 to get their reputation back.
@@williamcase426 Yes, aboard the Starliner. XP
Except for the methane gas that comes out of them
"look for something low profile and small to send back in starliner, like Boeing's reputation." - a murderer
Haha that was savage indeed!
Boom! Mike drop... 😂
We don't know if that reputation will survive the return yet.
@@neildotwilliams The problem is more that we don't know if it was the flight that killed it if it is dead on arrival.
I laughed out loud on that one. Really.
The doghouse thermal issues and Teflon seat swelling isn't a new thing. I worked both of those issues in the 80's and 2000. Remember the mantra - Test as you fly (including worse case scenarios). I should add that we changed the operational approach in operating on orbit to manage doghouse overheating - but that was a geo bird, can't do it easily here.
It seems to me that thermal management isn't impossible to simulate on the ground in a vacuum chamber. Electric heaters can be used. It wouldn't be exactly the same but clearly enough to get a significant safety margin.
@@dwightelvey645 Heat Transfer is simpler than a lot of engineering disciplines, both theoretically and practically. This is entirely on Boeing and their profit-maximizing doctrine.
The issue with using Boeings reputation as ballast is that these days it doesn't carry very much weight....
It's an empty box that occupies the entire cargo bay, or worse, a fire that consumes everything.
The “strap in under the cargo without a compatible spacesuit” contingency plan is something straight out of The Martian
Story Musgrave did one reentry standing up between the pilot and commander's seats on the shuttle.
@@cptjeff1 yes but he didn't *need* to
it existed as an idea long before that
lmao no way
@@cptjeff1why did he do that?
You said 2023 instead of 2003 for the Columbia disaster. I was so confused!
Yup also had a fright
Checked the comments looking for this; but yeah, pretty sure it didn't happen again 20 years later!
Wow, my ears just autocorrected that without my noticing. What's 20 years on a cosmic scale, anyway 🙂
He thinks COVID is just as bad.
COVID is a joke
When your life depends on it, “might be safe” is “definitely not safe.”
In the Air Force (iaf) we had a saying, When in doubt, there is no doubt.
Meaning the jet is not cleared for flight, go back and double check everything.
In aviation, flight safety always comes first.
All vehicles are "might be safe", including cars you get into daily. It's just a very low percentage when it's not.
I mean all elements are "might be safe" but its when you have a high confidence in understanding the state of your system. Its why aircrafts have preflight checks and regular inspections. You want to understand the state of your system, both before, during and after use.
Starliner is a case where the system is an uknown state and you cannot check its status accurately either. And by the lens of safety an unknown status means you cannot calculate the risk, and thus you have the assume the risk is maximal.
@@mobiuscoreindustries A good analysis.
also boeing not calling it done is the only thing that really ruins them no matter what happens. they fd up and wont admit it
Head of nasa even couldn’t say Dragon or space X ( just said they coming back on crew nine)
Just imagine if this happened the other way around
Well since there's already a mission called "CREW-9", it's correct to just mention the mission name. It's not like NASA was creating a brand new standalone mission _just_ to bring Butch & Sunny home.
By sending a Kerbal plushie, they've confirmed that the spacecraft was safe enough to send Kerbals to orbit.
13:56 I guess just a slip of the tongue, the loss of Columbia happened in 2003. I honestly appreciate the cautious approach by Nasa, unlike they did twice with the Shuttle. They might have learned the lesson after all, even if Starliner might have been safe enough to bring Sunny and Butch back
Was there even a backup option for columbia? They didn't go to the iss
@@wonjez3982 In theory they could have rushed Atlantis for a rescue mission, although, its success probability was to be confirmed. Still, never really looked into solving the foam shedding issues, despite the wake up call that several missions were, like STS-27 and STS-112
@@wonjez3982 "Was there even a backup option for columbia? They didn't go to the iss"
Not to the ISS. If I remember correctly, Columbia was heavier than the other Shuttles. It could reach the ISS from launch, but would be limited to a smaller payload, making it impractical; as a result it didn't have an ISS-compatible airlock. And on its last mission, it wouldn't have had the delta-V to reach the ISS.
their consolation prize is that at least the doors on this Boeing didn't fall off.
Yet .....
Yet...
Yet...
It did ..during transport 🤣
Boeing really fumbled the ball with this one, hopefully things will turn out for the better (though I doubt it unless it’s management culture changes)
Fumbling lots of balls. Big ones. Fumbled enough they are now shiny and perfectly rounded.
Aren't cost+ contracts wonderful?
Im looking forward to see if it survives reentry.
Boeing lost their way nearly 2 decades ago.
@@daviddesrosiers1946That would be nice. But it's a fixed cost contract. 4.2G$ for development including some flights. This comes all out of Boeings own pockets... But I'm sure the DOJ will step in and award some nice and lucrative contracts to even it out for Boeing.
8:46 Surprised to hear that there isn't spacesuit compatibility across Dragon and Starliner, given the lessons learned from CO2 scrubber incompatibility between LM and CM on Apollo 13.
Yeah, that struck me immediatly as unwise/safe! The essential needs are likely 90+% the same utilities, so common connects should be possible even with older current ISS suits, or adapters supplied. Because there are also the Soyuz suits to consider for escape! If/when emergencies occur, time and options will be limited. Hopefully the Chinese dont have the same issues, as they likely standardised on one recent design. Not that it will help the ISS, unless they followed Russian designs exactly?🤔
Every time I hear the phrase "...for what was supposed to be an 8-day mission", in my head I always hear,"... a three hour tour!... a three hour tour!"
David and Goliath.
Can Tiny Spacex Rock Boeing?
-Aviation Week March 29, 2004.
That aged well...
and now SpaceX is worth 2x Boeing 🤣
You would see similar headlines back in the 80s, when Airbus started directly challenging Boeing. Boeing has learned nothing from it.
Watching boeing struggle to get a single crew capsule to the ISS and back with constant delays and setbacks alongside Dragon is like watching a 1920s motorvehicle pit up against a ferrari
One of those process has a
@@jamesmurphy449Both Starliner and Dragon 2 use hydrazine-derived fuels and land with parachutes, so idk which one you're referring to.
@@kolbyking2315One is consistently repeating and reusing their orbital vehicles and launches and the other can't get out of bed without breaking its foot.
@@jamesmurphy449what rocket is burning thousands of tons of toxic fuels that are also somehow expensive? Unless you mean somehow one of them is using a hypergolic main stage?
Nah, the lynch mob might not like it but Starliner isn't that bad. Starliner satisfies the same requirements for NASA as Dragon 2. Boeing mismanagement has made a mess of things but fundamentally the vehicles do much the same job.
Boeing should be held responsible for the costs of stranding people on the ISS.
I'm sure they are.
No, NASA should be held responsible for getting go fever and launching a known broken vehicle. These decisions had nothing to do with Boing. NASA looked at the helium leaks and thought, "this is fine".
Previously they looked at SRB burn through and thought, "this is fine". They also looked at large ice sheets impacting the shuttle and thought, "this is fine". Back in the day they made a pure oxygen capsule and fitted it out with flammable material and thought, "this is fine".
Each time they claimed they are suffering from go fever and from now on it is aspirin for everyone involved.
a few 10's of millions per month is the current rate per astronaut, I seem to have read somewhere. NASA will bill Boeing.
Lol in addition to being more than a billion $ over budget.
Oh they will be charged big time. Of course they'll just add the fine to the invoice and get paid back 🤷
Every time I see the footage of Suni Williams _JOYOUSLY_ entering the ISS it makes me feel happy, which is something I rarely feel these days.
"Fly safe." Not on Boeing.
Last time I was this early, it was still an 8 day mission.
😂
Boeing learned from the best. It's just a special space exploratory operation.
Last time I was this early it was a 2 week quarantine
@@villager5633 flatten the curve / plug the leak....what's the diff?
Last time I was this early, Boeing was still seen as "ol' reliable"
The most sensible, factual and contextual breakdown of this entire episode, bar none. No drama, no politics, no scaremongering and no profiting by clicks, likes, subs, audience numbers or cash.
Well, you can do that when you have a day job, an yt is a hobby.
"You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?" - Rockhound, _Armageddon (1997)_
Hasn't aged great since Boeing was not the lowest bidder.
@@stuartspence9921 You really think their suppliers and subcontractors weren't?
You interested in swampland real estate?
@@mawnkeythis wasnt a money problem, it was a design and test problem.
@@stuartspence9921true
@@wizzyno1566design and testing is most of the money. It's why they cost so much to launch. They have to make up for the cost to design and test them.
Not 22 people in space, 25! Tiangong currently has 3 crew members aboard.
Thats a good point, you'd think that by the number of launches from China covered by Scott, people should be more aware of the progress they have made. Their Space Program is not a cheap Walmart knockoff of the Soviet era, they are rapidly takeing it to the next level.
Hell, even Helium wants to get off star liner
Probably the best thing that could’ve happened from the crews perspective.
It’s most definitely the last time these brave men and women fly to space. Might as well have an extended stay for the final mission of their career.
Love ya butch and sunny.
NASA didn't even have the respect to call the astronauts by their full names. This is disgraceful. These are not just "Two American kids/Doin the best they can" They aren't Jack and Dianne. Neil didn't land on the Moon, Neil Armstrong did. John wasn't the first American in orbit, John Glenn was. You can Google their names. Google "Butch" and see what happens. NASA has given these expert, highly trained, incredibly proficient astronauts a grave slight. They've been treated as if there is nothing special about who they are, what they have gone through to get where they are, or how they'll be (not) remembered in the future. Shame on NASA.
The phrase is “if it’s Boeing we’re going” - they didn’t say anything about coming back y’all.
Seeing Boeing kill it's reputation over the last number of years has been a slow sad time.
That's what happens when the MBAs get their hands on a science and technology organization.
Boeing executives killed 346 people in two 737 MAX crashes. Nothing changes unless they get jail time.
I mean it’s killed more than just its reputation. At least one whistleblower directly, the other probably indirectly (stress could have made infection more likely/worse) and not to mention a couple 737 max plane fulls of passengers
My understanding is that during the shuttle era much or all of the support for the shuttle astronauts was still from the shuttle, not from the ISS. For example, shuttle fuel cells generated water as a byproduct, and while the ISS reduced the load on the fuel cells I don't think it eliminated it. The shuttle could also carry plenty of food for it's crew.
So... not exactly fair to compare 13 astronauts on ISS+shuttle to 12 astronauts being supported soley by the ISS.
So what are butch and sunny doing while at the ISS? do they have mission tasks or are they just sweeping floors/walls/ceilings and making quesadillas for the other astronauts?
Hahahahaha.....slipped that one in softly....."Like Boeing's reputation....."
Well if Boing can't keep it up with some once no-name company even with all savings in maintenance + quality control, you know something is really going wrong over there.
A company has to prioritize ... and some prioritize management bonuses and shareholder dividends.
What has this "maintenance + quality control" ever done for us? This child of a rich dude has an MBA bought at an elite university, surely he knows more than these peasant engineers.
That's why it's important to distinguish between areas where cost cutting is acceptable, and areas where cost cutting on that area... has knock-on effects that make everything else more expensive enough that you end up spending MORE overall money, even tho you saved money on the one thing you cut costs on.
Quality control, employee retention, and preventative maintenance are three of many of those things you never try to save money on if you actually know anything about how to get things done (meaning you know more than how to balance the books).
@@loacommander The Boeing problems are management problems, greedy idiots at the top are very much a home-grown American male problem even if racists like to blame it on minorities.
@@loacommander Exactly.
I'm glad they aren't pulling another Colombia. Celebrating safety!!
Columbia.
You got that right. Shouldve been manslaughter charges.
and Challenger. 😔
@@LuciFeric137 What could they have done though on short notice? Send up a rocket with the missing tiles and some glue perhaps? Would have required space walks and other things, I guess in hindsight they could have been saved.
@@SanctuaryLife lol. Yeah, just do nothing. Hope. The failure is not an option guys. The guys that got Apollo 13 home. Smh
Starliner's cargo home: Boeing's reputation. Unlikely, its already buried, they'll have to disinter it then fly it up there just to bring it back!
12:42 don't forget 3/6 taikonaut on css😂😂 so that's 25/28?
Was thinking the same thing!
Also calling a trip on blue origin "being in space" is really stretching it. Like calling yourself an olympic swimmer in a kiddie pool.
You forgot to mention that Boeing is also heavily critisized for its work on the SLS. Just another thing where Boeing's "reputation" is suffering greatly.
Not that Boeing have ANY reputation left (except for not being able to deliver on time and in good order).
KC-46: Problems, over budget. 777X: problems, late, over budget. 737MAX: Need I say it? Even the 787 was late, but it seems to be okay (for now?)
And SLS is Cost Plus ... meaning all of Boeing's failures and delays just earn it more money.
Suggestion for the next Commercial Crew Program: standardized suit compatibility... I don't understand why this was a problem or was overlooked
Commercialism.
Competition.
Capitalism.
Proprietary rights.
Dissimilar redundancy.
All seemingly good reasons why compatibility was not a requirement in NASA's contracts. Seemingly they just never factored in this kind of scenario.
Apollo 13 O2 systems differed between the lunar lander and the capsule. Had to make-shift adapters (fortunately successfully) to save the 3 astronauts. Did we learn from this? Such dumb-asses . . .
All they need is a conversion box unit.
It is not as if there is a major movie about the one incident where incompatible life-support systems famously bit NASA before.
I’m sure Elon can send them some spare suits
11:45 Ouch brutal
Catastrophic 😂
No, that won't do Boeing's reputation doesn't have enough weight behind it anymore
"and then in early 2023 the columbia disaster happened"
such are the times that i had to look that up to check my sanity
It's not just Boeing that's not run by engineers anymore, it seems like no corporation is run by the people who actually know how to do the job.
We should probably consider doing something about that.
nasa is run by politicians, nasa killed seven astronauts twice over with their shuttle management. Nasa also ok'ed the Starliner for this launch. nasa is the problem and should be cut from the taxpayers money
Part of the problem is the home school, micro school and 'unschool' situation IMO. It's only going to get worse. Scary.
Vouchers for so called school choice are also an issue.
I blame the MBA programs. A generic "business" degree doesn't really qualify you for the intricacies of whatever industry someone may lead.
What? Boeing has not been an engineering company. Founder was an industrialist. Even first CTO had no engineering degree. I think he was a boat captain.
I know Scott indicated he doesn't believe that Starliner is a 'deathtrap'. But, if there are further thruster problems, which is entirely plausible, that could mean that Starliner misses its re-entry insertion point, or doesn't re-enter in the right orientation, or could end up in an uncorrectable tumble. So, while it may not be a deathtrap yet, it could certainly turn into one very rapidly. It will be interesting to see how Dreamchaser performs. If does well, that will be the last straw before Starliner is dumped entirely.
Dreamchaser is a cargo vehicle. It doesn't have the capability to carry crew. NASA see having two American crew capsules as extremely important (an aim I agree with), so I'd be shocked if they abandoned Starliner
Worst case scenario is that further manoeuvring thrusters fail during the undocking until the craft is left unable to get into an attitude where it could fire the deorbit thrusters effectively. NASA would never recover if there was days or weeks worth of footage of Butch and Sunni slowly running out of life support with no way to either get back to the ISS or down to Earth.
@@Benaplus1 Dreamchaser, like Dragon will start as unmanned. Then intent is for it to also become human rated.
Starliner is likely much safer than a shuttle.
@@Benaplus1 It is dual purpose. The cargo variant is being built first. The crewed version won't be far behind.
sadly boeings reputation doesnt carry enough weight to function as ballast
i would say at this point boings rep is a perfect ballast since it weights them down heavily..
Ballast is meant to provide balance, a neutral buoyancy. This is more of a dead-weight designed to make something sink when it should've been floating.
They can put the Being suits into Starliner. If Starliner makes it back safely, so will suits, if Starliner fails, then I don't see much future use for the suits either. :D
Agreed
I think that the problem is that the starliners suits physicaly wont work with dragon. Its an interface issue afaik
@@laveturnerjones3954 I think they were referring to the suits as ballast rather than occupied/operational suits.
@@Cooper_42 Yes, Boeing suits put into the Boeing craft as balast. If the craft successfully lands, suits will be fine.
I think they do need to keep the suits in case starliner failed during departing and hit ISS, so they can at least wear something before strapping themselves into dragon cargo place.
I’ve said this before too. Boeing should be financially responsible for every mission and crewed flight that is being delayed or complicated by their failure.
I wouldn’t say we know SpaceX is safer, I would say we know more about SpaceX’s safety.
Interestingly, I looked up the linear thermal expansion coefficient of Teflon, and it is typically more than 50% higher than nylon and about 10 times greater than stainless steel. Since the thruster doghouses were getting significantly hotter than expected, this could explain why the teflon in the valves were popping out and interfering with the flow of propellent to the thrusters.
Boeing's reputation, ha. If you said Boeing's name is mud, mud would sue for slander.
Fly Airbus!
Thankfully , it's not Alowishus Devadander Abercrombie ...
@@peterebel7899 Fuck airbus.
2 active spacecraft? As long as Starliner is not fully functional there seem to be only one (aka Crew Dragon). Others are lining up in the pathway created by SpaceX, but Starliner does not appear as such.
Don't forget Soyuz. Crude, antiquated, but incredibly reliable - very Soviet in its design philosophy. Of course having to bring someone back via the Russians would be even more humiliating for Boeing than having to use SpaceX.
@@kenoliver8913 I'm not forgetting it. I'm just saying that there isn't 2 in the US at the moment given the state of the Starliner
Well that’s more than they expected for their 3 hour tour!
When the finance department thinks they are the boss of an engineering company
What do you get when you cross Lost in Space with Gilligan's Island? A joke about Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission.. "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty astronaut, the Skipper brave and sure..."
They already made that. It was called _Far Out Space Nuts_ and ran for 15 episodes in 1975. The crew was almost, but not quite as incompetent as Boeing. "I said 'lunch' not 'launch!'"
If you need ballast, you need something with substance that carries weight. That rules out using Boeing's reputation as ballast.
Well, at least it would come down. 😅
@@jamesogden7756 everything comes down. That's not the hard part. Boeing has a hard time with getting things down while still fully assembled and in a way that keeps it fully assembled once down.
@peterkallend5012 ... that is the rub eh? Clever man.
Glad that NASA is making the right decision here. I read a rumor that NASA might pay Boeing to send Starliner up on a cargo mission to properly certify it for use.
I hope not! No more money for the clown show.
NASA should be fining Boeing, not throwing more money their way.
@@kirishima638 There is a good argument to be made that with the ISS scheduled for deorbit in 2030, we don't need Starliner any more.
Better than trusting them with people, but they really should cut the cord and let Boeing go
@@kirishima638 It would be coming out of their crew flight millstone payments, so the total contract amount ($5.1B) wouldn't increase. Just changing one crew flight into a cargo flight out of the six contracted.
They need some ballast for the Starliner? Well, there's two Boeing space suits.
the overtime pay for Butch and Suni is going to be through the roof lol
What's the worst that can happen, a door dropping off mid flight?
Ooh thanks for reminding me, I live in Portland let me get my helmet on
From a spaceship the door will not fall into your backyard.
@@peterebel7899wow. Autism?
@@dannyarcher6370No. I’m autistic, and I got the joke just fine. Humour is diminished when insisting on accuracy (unless the insistence is itself part of the joke, which can sometimes be even funnier)
11:40 XD that was the finest joke of the year!
It seems like it might be a good idea to have a dragon on standby for rescue operations, that's ready to launch within 30 days or something. I'm curious what the complications and cost of something like that would be. Might be an interesting topic for a video
They've got plenty of Falcon 9 boosters laying around, and a 2nd stage shouldn't be hard to source. However I seem to remember that Elon has said they aren't going to make any more Crew Dragon capsules. So there aren't any spares laying around to build a standby rocket. In future such things will be done by Starship.
Pretty sure Musk could be convinced to build one more crew dragon if asked.
@@tarmaque There are 4 Dragons with a 5th coming online in early 2025. There will usually be one or two sitting around between missions but it seems likely there's some kind of refurbishment going on. That'll also depend on the pace and timing of private missions - and on which are configured for a private mission with no docking collar. Right now one is set up for Polaris Dawn and another will soon be fitted with the cupola for Fram2.
It's unlikely one Dragon can be kept on standby just for NASA (the $$$!) but perhaps a "virtual one" could be kept in readiness amongst the fleet rotation.
F9s will not be a problem, there are a couple at the Cape every week ready to launch. Sure, the ones designated for crewed launches must get special attention but if urgently needed any booster in the fleet will do.
@@donjones4719 My points exactly. Thank you.
There are plenty of Soyuz in Russia. It not being reusable, they are constantly in making new ones.
As someone who also had someone "just stay for a night or two" and then still having them crash on you couch months later, I hope they send up enough chips and beers for Butch and Suni...
As someone with family who works at NASA and friends at Boeing I developed while working as an A&P in Seattle (all while renting a room from a old friend who worked with me in offshore seismic in the 80's who's now a senior IT w/ Boeing) I got a lot of underground knowledge of how the corporate types were destroying the engineering culture at Boeing. So I'm not surprised at what has happened the last few years. I even ran around doing cool hobby stuff with guys from Boeings military division laser development group and they were saying it was a clown show from management so I just expected stuff like this to be coming around.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin' man,
The Skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour,
A three hour tour. That turned into eight months....
The "Floor" for spacecraft is Soyuz, the rusted out 71 beetel with milk crates for seats, rope for seatbelts and has bailing wire welds, vs Star Liner, the 84 VW Combi-van of the creepy Test pilot turned accountant that is your Great Grandnma's Ex who'd tell you Ketchup is your in-flight meal and if you want seatbelts that i'll be 99$ per belt.
So, one of the possible problems in Starliner is that everyone in the doghouse is in heat?
Small correction: the Columbia disaster was in 2003, not 2023.
Launch day footage was a perfect sign of the program. When we got to watch the close out crew and they couldn't even wear the safety gear correctly, let alone use it. It just showed how far boeing and nasa have fallen. Prior roll outs of the capsule with safety parts falling off landing on the road. Massive delays. Bloated expenses. It's just a mockery of its former glory. How's that new spacesuit coming. SLS is in the same situation. I mean it's not even newly designed tech, it's a majority of reused items designed by the former generation, when nasa, boeing etc were great and actually shined.
Let’s send the Boeing execs who think it is probably safe up in the SpaceX rescue capsule to bring their Starliner back to earth.
Boeing is having a “no good very bad....year”
.... decade*
This whole decade has been a series of progressively worse disasters for them. 😢
The deorbit of shame. Sad days for the once glorious Boeing.
If it's Boeing
they ain't going
home
Boeing firing their senior engineers has come back to bite them. As a tenured and senior software engineer with experience across many industries and companies I can tell you that a good senior engineer is worth more than 10x a junior one, and in fact a junior often is a negative contributor and it's a part of the responsibilities of a senior to help make them productive. Without the seniors you get planes falling out of the sky and unusable rockets and re-entry vehicles and worse.
I wonder why NASA did not mandate that suit connections be common between Dragon and Starliner?
If you want a ton more bureaucracy like that, you get Boeing not SpaceX.
Because Boeing wasn't going to use space-X's design when they could waste billions on their own design...
That kinda reminds me of Apollo 13 and the filters being different. Also just by looking at them the suit connections are very different so not sure if adapting the capsule (possible using an adapter) could be the easier option.
Because suits are complicated and SpaceX believed they could innovate and did not want to work with boeing
You have to understand while the immediate goal is to get people and equipment into (and out of) space, the long-term goal is to improve all these systems used for space travel. And the fastest way to do that is to encourage lots of different companies to come up with lots of different designs. So you can rapidly test out the pros and cons of all the different designs in parallel. If you mandate everyone has to use the same design, then yeah you get compatibility. But innovation and technological progress stagnates.
Could they still use starliner for a trash disposal mission?
The worry is that the thrusters might fire wonky and end up with a collision of starliner and the ISS.
I know this is a joke, but unfortunately, without reliable reaction control thrusters, a Starliner may collide with ISS during docking so even a trash disposal mission is unsafe to ISS and its occupants.
Not without a software downgrade to the software they used for the unmanned demo flight.
@@liangxuwell they're going to have to undock and deorbit it somehow or there's nowhere for Dragon to dock.
I could see them loading some dunnage equal to the astronauts weight , but , most trash loadings are things they DO want to Burn Up. I don't think they'd risk losing science projects either.
It's just like college; after the government money started flowing in, prices and profits skyrocketed, quality of output was no longer important to keep them high so it was entirely dismissed altogether.
In sweden on school complained over cost ,they were paid a sum and the schoolboard desided to share the money with the investorsand themselves and not to any related to the school - was in the newspapers and they cried crocodiletears but nothing will happen and no rent will be payed by the partipitiants -Guess the sharks were hungry and smelled incoming fresh blood
Interesting... So when did government money start to flow into Boeing? Oh, basically from the beginning? Riiiight...
Yes, unlike space X lol ( literally built from the ground up on government contracts bro)
@@BadOompaloompa79 contracts aren't welfare.
Except other nations also put money into their universities, and their prices do not skyrocket and their quality does not suffer.
This is a strictly US and UK problem.
The reason you probably don't want to just lay down in the bottom of Crew Dragon is 4.2gs of deceleration and the the jolts and jerks of parachute deployment and splashdown. Bob Behnken described the parachute deployment as "being hit in the back of the chair with a baseball bat"
So the test flight crew was simply incorporated into the ISS rotation and schedules were shifted around. Remember, at any point a Soyuz or Dragon could be used to get them back home. If I’m not mistaken, a Soyuz is always kept docked at the ISS as an emergency lifeboat.
I distinctly recall during the hatch opening feed that the castaways inquired about if there were spare undergarments awaiting them, because there weren't any onboard. The response was that they have what they're wearing and that's it, because it was only meant to be a 3h (or so) tour.
If I know I'm going on a Boeing I'd be taking a spare pair of undercrackers with me.
Actual NASA had a last minute switch in the cargo manifest. The ISS critically needed a part for its urine reprocessing systems, so NASA switched out some of the cargo for that part, however the cargo on Starliner was the crew's personal supplies. Since then Cygnus has launched and brought extra supplies for butch and suni
@@philb5593 Thanks for the update. I wouldn't have known otherwise.
It kinda reminds me of a scene in the movie Dark Star, which is kind of a "space is not fun" type of semi-comedy.
I was thinking I did not know what Suni's age was so it is not an issue for her now, but what if a woman astronaut were to get a visit from Aunt Flo and no products for women there.
@@user-wz1qo1cn3i There are younger women up there. I'm sure there are spare bandoleers of girl ammo. The fighting comes when the TP gets low and nobody will spare a single square.
Oh wow, it took them 8 weeks to pick the solution everyone thought of instantly.
Easy to come up with an idea from 3 choices, and another to do the analysis and testing to determine which is *actually* the best solution.
@@CorwynGC Neither 'analysis' nor 'testing' will fix the faulty spacecraft already in space. And THAT is the problem.
@@CorwynGC Yeah sure it was that and not politicians demanding there be no "rescue mission" by the guy funding the opposite party in an election year.
The fact that the convoluted plan to keep them in space for another 6 was unanimous shows not going back on Starliner was an easy decision.
There were over 100 NASA people who reviewed the data and not a single one thought Boeing was the right option.
@@cjay2 So you know precisely what is wrong with it, and exactly when and where it will fail? Brilliant. Call NASA.
It's interesting that these Capsule's all have the same Docking Port and yet the Astronaut's Space Suits have no adaptive compatibility to "plug-into" other capsules.
Also, the Dragon Capsule's were designed to carry up to 7 Astronaut's if needed. It seems like they could carry more than Two if they were adding Two for the return trip.
Initially designed, and they could be adapted to be set up that way, but that doesn't mean that all the detailed design for such adaptations has been done, never mind signed off on. It's not just a case of throwing more seats in, the whole life support system needs to be rated for 7 people, and I don't think the one they currently use is.
Docking ports have to be universal because different spacecraft have to dock. Suits don't have to be because (typically) each suit is only used in one type of spacecraft.
You actually want different designs for things like suits. Lots of different companies try lots of different things. You get real-world data on the pros and cons of the different systems (and on what designs to avoid). And everyone's designs gradually improve based on lessons learned.
If they'd made this decision earlier, they might've had enough time to come up with adapters to plug the Starliner suits into the Dragon capsule.
NASA limited it to four seats so that a safe seat angle can be used, necessary for safety on a hard emergency landing. Flying back with six people is more dangerous for the two "stowaways" because of less than ideal seating as they are basically strap-in cargo. Seven would be even worse.
@@solandri69 SpaceSuit connections should be adaptable to other capsules for the same reasons the docking port is. Lives may depend on that someday. It's like they developed a square CO2 scrubber to fit into a round hole. Oh wait, that sounds familiar somehow ?
@@agsystems8220 Yea, I remember hearing that NASA wanted different seat Angles on Dragon to improve survivability in case of a hard water landing, so they reduced it to 5 seats to meet those demands. Also, I guess they use the extra space for "hauling the mail". The complete incompatibility between space suit adaptability may bite NASA in the ars one of these days imho. They learned that lesson w/ Apollo 13.
I hope SpaceX beefs up their security. We all know what Boeing is capable of, I wouldn't be shocked if they attempted to sabotage a Dragon capsule.
I'm a registered space agency director. Trust me, nothing's difficult here:
Just ctrl+S and see if the capsule does work.
And even if you didn't save before hand, what's the worst which could happen?
You'll just have to buy two new random Kerbins, give them an haircut, and voilà, they are kerbonauts.
The Columbia disaster was 2003 not 2023 right?
I was looking for anyone else to pick up on that.
I think Scott mixed up the year there xD