That's funny! I about fell out of my chair laughing.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, September 06, 2024 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Starliner Anyone willing to take the bet?

"But Nasa administrator Bill Nelson says he is 100% certain it would fly with a crew onboard again."

The Startliner will be sent back to Earth (without crew) tonight.

The autopilot appears to have been re-progammed into it.... will Boeing get a text book return?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, September 06, 2024 - 05:24 pm: Edit

My prediction:

It will experience some kind of serious malfunction during re-entry and burn up in the atmosphere.

The project will receive billions of dollars in new funding from Congress to fix the problems.

The craft will never be used in a meaningful context ever again.

--Mike

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 06, 2024 - 06:19 pm: Edit

I fear that if Starliner fails Boeing is done.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, September 06, 2024 - 06:43 pm: Edit

I would agree with that in space.

They need to get their act together with aircraft too, or they will be done as a company as well.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, September 06, 2024 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Mike and SVC

Well, that so to speak is the Billion(s) dollar question.

Boeing did say it was 'safe'.

I would admit, not sure thats a bet I would take with my life, baseed on the group wide 'safety' failures (although I did fly in a 737 twice last monbth - although atleast LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of 737 and the rest fly safely on a daily basis)?

737's and the rest have a 99%+ success rate.

Starliner has a 100% success rate in NOT killing the Crew.....but a 100% failure rate of serious issues while manned.

Who wouold be willing to take that bet?

The commercial question is, how long will it take for Boeing to be allowed to fly the Starliner (crewed) again and will Space X (and probably another launch system or two) have signed contract the next 20 years of manned flights?

Even if Starliner lands safely, I anm not sure Starliner will ever be used again.

How mucch of the NASA payments to Boeing have been spent?

Would clawing what has not been spent back to make a larger payment to make another firm (say Blue Origon or a new firm) make sense?

(Couple of Legal issues, but I am sure a positive Media statement about Boeing agreeing to end the contract would save them some face??)

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 12:01 am: Edit

3 good parachutes and a safe landing for Starliner.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 12:19 am: Edit

At least that much good news.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 03:49 am: Edit

Is there an alternative to Boeing?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 04:22 am: Edit

SpaceX for one, Blue Origin for another.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 05:39 am: Edit

Well, something finally goes Boeings way.

As Will said - safe landing.

Haven't read about any problems during the return flight - but no doubt the capsual wil be torn apart to find out what did work and what didn't (both on the Up and the Down).

Anyone want to pretend to be in charge of NASA and decide what they now do?

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 11:00 am: Edit

It is probable that Space X will eventually have a serious failure. Space is hard.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Saturday, September 07, 2024 - 12:05 pm: Edit

The thought of Starliner burning up in atmosphere with no crew on board reminds me of the movie Capricorn One, about a faked Mars mission

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 12:58 pm: Edit

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic is continuing to pursue their air-launched spaceplane program.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 04:51 pm: Edit

How many of these companies have put people in space? Any more getting close?

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 06:56 pm: Edit

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic have all managed to do so, at least as far as "passing the 50-mile mark" counts as going into space. Sierra Space was getting close with their Dream Chaser vehicle, but it remains uncertain if the project will reach the crewed mission stage.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 07:11 pm: Edit

Anyone besides SpaceX actually reach orbit?

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, September 08, 2024 - 08:49 pm: Edit

Not yet.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 11:02 am: Edit

$. Personally, I think a Blue Origin type parasitic rocket taken to 60-70,000 feet is the way to go. Maye merge that with the SpaceX reusable 1st stage?

Could the plane part scale up?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 11:09 am: Edit

While I do like the idea of scaling up the whole Blue Origin thing, what little of me that is a scientist has to bring up the square/cube law, and with it, the difficulty involved in getting a world record sized aircraft up to world record aircraft operating altitudes.

I fear those might be even bigger engineering hurdles than building a stronger booster.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 04:40 pm: Edit

Isn't the issue with anything re-usable...

1) The initial costs are higher
2) Replacement parts are still needed
3) There is a finite number of times the main 'capsule/rocket' can be used before it has to be replaced?

The Shuttle was clearly a good idea - but Discovey 'only' got to 39 missions.

In other words - is a cheap 'one use' thing better than something reusable?

If you stay sub-orbital (Virgin Galactic), no doubt the issues are far easier to control and it might be posisble - but I am guessing Space Travel and 'Green/Renewable' will probably never be used in the same sentance?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 05:19 pm: Edit

The shuttle was run at 107% of design and required total rebuild after each flight. Calling it reusable is a stretch.

Airliners or your automobile run at less than 70% of design and do their thing day after day without refurbishing them.

That is the difference.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 08:11 pm: Edit

IMO, the Shuttle Orbiter was a good concept, but the final design left a LOT to be desired.
Witness the loss of 2 orbiters.

Also, as SVC pointed out extensive maintenance was needed on certain parts, especially the main engines. So I would call it mostly reusable.
IIRC, at the end of its operational life, Atlantis had several pressurized tanks for compressed gases that were beyond the expiration date and had no replacements available. Those tanks were brought up to pressure just before launch.

Orbital space is difficult. The energies of reaching orbital velocity and then slowing down to land is several orders of magnitudes larger (IMO) than suborbital flight.

However, reusability does reduce cost, as SpaceX has shown with the Falcon 9 first stages.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, September 09, 2024 - 11:02 pm: Edit

Some other things that increased the cost of the shuttle:

* It had a larger than needed cargo capacity, so most of the missions ended up using only a fraction of the cargo area and a fraction of the lift weight. It was just a bigger space truck than was really needed most of the time.

* The whole system had the capability to be inserted into a wide range of orbits, but only used common ones most of the time.

* The orbiter itself was quite maneuverable in orbit, but this capability was seldom used. I had read it was envisioned this maneuverability might have been valuable in some hypothetical military missions?

Not that any of those things are bad per se, it just adds cost to carry around features in your space truck you don't really need.

--Mike

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Tuesday, September 10, 2024 - 01:06 am: Edit

All three of those bulleted capabilities you listed were mostly there because the military insisted, Mike.

The only way the shuttle program got funded was by bundling it as the magic way to also launch the (gigantic) NSA spy satellites, and do other often exotic military missions on short notice and to eccentric orbit. All done cheaper, because reusable (except... not really so much)

Those requirements drove a lot of the design and configuration for the STS shuttle system.

After Challenger's accident and the grounding following it, the military abandoned the longtime charade and doubled-down on the Delta III/IV and Atlas series disposable boosters.

Some of those requirements levied on the shuttle proved useful later. The ISS would not exist in its current form without the shuttle's huge cargo bay and excellent ability to act as a work-platform. Nothing else have ever come close.

Big boosters like Energia could loft big and heavy things, but only the shuttle could act as the workspace to do all the truss-work and equipment hookups. The station would have been much simpler and mostly self-guiding and docking segments (likely at a higher cost, since every segment would be an autonomous spacecraft, until docked).

Unfortunately, the military requirements also drove some of the odder aspects of the STS systems configuration. It's been a while, but IIRC the "missed approach" jet engines were dropped to add more payload weight capacity to hit the military targets. Some combination of requirements also led to the external tank and boosters, rather than a reusable "mothership" the earliest concepts featured.

The shuttle was an amazing machine, but it pushed late-60s/early-70s technologies to (and past) their limits. It just took way too much effort and money to refurbish between each flight. We're starting to see its original promise fulfilled now, decades later with Starship and the Dreamchaser, which hopefully make fully and rapidly reusable orbital spacecraft a reality soon.