As exciting as this is, I’ve read that this capsule faces uncertain future after 7 launches: the rocket it was launched on is retired, and while it’s compatible with Falcon it’s not clear what the advantage would be wrt SpaceX’s capsule to warrant additional testing. Imagine working on something for over a decade only to see it fly just 7 times!
On top of problems with helium leaks there's now another issue[1]:
> Starliner has been given a go to hold at 260 meters from the space station. During the approach two reaction control system jets have failed off. A manual flight test has been put on hold while flight controllers look to restore those jets with a hot fire.
Sounds like there's a problem with the cooling system using more water than expected. If I understood the comms correctly it sounded like they switched to a backup system to try to alleviate the issue.
SLS is a jobs program. It's not economically viable at over $1 billion per launch.
As for Blue Origin and New Glenn, this is an object lesson that simply throwing money at the problem doesn't necessarily solve it. Did you know Blue Origin was founded ~18 months before SpaceX?
For the longest time (up until ~9 months ago), Bezos had the former Honeywell CEO in charge of Blue Origin, which to me was such an odd choice. You see, this guy seems to embody everything wrong with corporate America: he was completely focused on not failing rather than succeeding. So there were constant delays with New Glenn and the BE-4 engine, which is years behind schedule. You can't fail if you don't launch.
And the new CEO (David Limp) used to be in charge of Kindles.
I don't think it's crazy; it's competition, which is what should be happening. We want multiple private companies to be in this game, because that's the only way access to space will ever become practical at any kind of scale.
For me the crazy part is that SpaceX has done 12 crewed flights before Boeing even got their first set of test pilots of the ground. I recall back when NASA was justifying giving nearly twice as much money to Boeing that "because they were much more likely to be ready sooner."
It's a really exciting time. Also the Chinese have lots of space going on. Chang'e 5 is on its way back from the moon. Tiangong is quite large now. I'm thrilled to see humanity accelerate this.
Don't forget that for the foreseeable future, until other plans are made, there is a hard mission count limit for starliner, which is the number of remaining atlas V cores. The engines are Russian made and subject to sanction, so nasa could just refuse to recertify starliner on a new platform, so sad, so sorry, and have starliner just disappeae into tte night while saving face fir boeing.
> It's crazy the US could soon have up to 5 different spacecraft/launch systems that can take humans to orbit with 2 more in development
We had a launch system that could take humans to the moon in 1972.. haven't had one since. Maybe we will get another one in our lifetime, if it is even possible.
Everyone who likes space stuff should go watch it. They focus too much on marriage drama for my taste and they kinda jump the shark in the later seasons, but the first season is a love letter to a past that should have existed, and in a way I can't express with words.
I work in the aerospace industry and just watching a depiction of it in a universe where people still just...gave a shit...especially about something other than money, brings about a whole spectrum of emotions.
One thing which surprised me a bit was how fast it left the launch pad. It took just a second or a little bit more.
With Starship it appeared as if it was struggling to lift off, staying for a while burning fuel until it left the launch pad and even then it felt a bit slow at accelerating.
This has to do with the launch vehicle's thrust to weight ratio (TWR) on the ground with a full tank. It's usually between 1.1 and 1.4. The Russian Proton has a famously high ground TWR and is known for "leaping" off the pad. Maybe Starliner is the same in this initial crewed LEO config.
For one, Starship is 392 ft vs 172ft of Atlas V + Starliner. Even if they accelerate off the pad at the same rate, Starship is going to look like it's moving a lot slower.
The better comparison is probably Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon in terms of mass / mission etc. Starship is in a totally different class
For Falcon 9 - it will look slower on takeoff as well. One reason not mentioned yet is that after engine start, Falcon is held down until all vehicle systems are verified as functioning normally before release for liftoff. So they can do pressure / thrust etc checks on the ground before releasing.
With solid rocket motors especially - once you light those you are pretty committed.
I’m not a rocket scientist but I do know the two rockets use different propellants. The Atlas V uses solid propellant, and the Starship uses liquid. I know liquid engines have the ability to throttle them, and I would guess solid does not (or a more limited capacity) so that could be at play here. Starship could ignite and then throttle up, which would leave it on the pad longer. I’m sure someone more knowledgeable than I can clarify!
As mentioned in other comments, the TWR at liftoff is what makes the difference. If you look at footage of Shuttle and Saturn V launches, you can really see the difference between the Saturn V's TWR of ~1.2 and Shuttle's TWR of ~1.5.
This is a n00b question, but how do regulations apply to private human crewed missions in the US?
Are there clear guidelines already written? I’m assuming it inherits a lot of rules of general aviation? But since private firms launching into space is new, do the rules and regulations keep up? Or are they still to be written?
What a relief for NASA and Boeing and a welcome sight for me personally as a space enthusiast - hopefully this will inspire the folks at SpaceX to get StarShip working.
Interesting that this did not make HN at all before the launch. There are way more cheerleaders for SpaceX than Boeing. But IMO it's still very cool, I could watch rocket launches all day.
It's been delayed so many times after getting very close to launch that it makes sense that everyone just lost interest.
On top of that Boeing's launch coverage is nowhere near as fancy as SpaceX (or new space in general, RocketLab and Blue Origin also tend to have pretty decent coverage, although neither of them are doing crewed orbital spaceflight yet). No views of the non-flight-control employees enjoying seeing their work fly, very little live telemetry, low resolution for when they do have live video, mostly CGI views once down to the second stage, no live views from the capsule in space either.
Finally, on top of that, Starliner is kind of just a dead end in its current state. Boeing only built the two it needs for this one contract, and it only flies on Atlas V, which are fully sold out now. So it can only do the 6 contracted ISS missions and then it's done until someone is willing to pay to have Starliner+Vulcan Centaur crew rated.
Everyone was excited for the one last time and I was around for that, I didn't even realize it was happening today. I just assumed it'd be delayed for another long period again.
I find it amazing that this is treated as such a trivial achievement, with an attitude as if any one of us could have done this. Now back to our regularly scheduled social media apps.
I would say that the one redeeming quality of Elon Musk (in a sea of otherwise awful personality traits) is that for at least Tesla and SpaceX, that he was interested in running those companies primarily to produce a product. Like that was the primary focus and raison d'être of both of those companies, especially SpaceX I think. This is in opposition to the usual "the only point of a business is to make money" ethos that so permeates neoliberal capitalism that we hardly even notice it anymore. The latter is dysfunctional, inhuman, and ultimately bad for business.
I don't know if he still takes that approach. In fact, I kind of doubt he ever really did, but he certainly projected that image publicly, and most importantly to workers of those companies - whether he "really believed" it I guess is a moot point.
When you take the "businesses exist to return a profit to shareholders" approach you're always going to focus on leadership that has a track record of doing that, even if that excludes building a good product or for that matter even the long-term viability of the business. Thus, you see these CEO hires that don't seem to make sense - most of us unconsciously still think of businesses as things created to make a thing or do a specific thing, because that's a natural thing to believe.
Anyway I think you can attribute some of the success of both to this, as well as Musk's public image at least ca 2008-2018 or so.
[+] [-] ein0p|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jeff_vader|1 year ago|reply
> Starliner has been given a go to hold at 260 meters from the space station. During the approach two reaction control system jets have failed off. A manual flight test has been put on hold while flight controllers look to restore those jets with a hot fire.
[1]: https://x.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1798738262368104639
[+] [-] dave78|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fiftyfifty|1 year ago|reply
Falcon 9 + Dragon, SLS + Orion, Atlas V (Vulcan Centaur) + Starliner
Close to orbital payload launch, likely human rated in the future: Vulcan Centaur + Dream Chaser, Superheavy + Starship
Under development: New Glenn + Space Vehicle (?), Neutron
[+] [-] cletus|1 year ago|reply
As for Blue Origin and New Glenn, this is an object lesson that simply throwing money at the problem doesn't necessarily solve it. Did you know Blue Origin was founded ~18 months before SpaceX?
For the longest time (up until ~9 months ago), Bezos had the former Honeywell CEO in charge of Blue Origin, which to me was such an odd choice. You see, this guy seems to embody everything wrong with corporate America: he was completely focused on not failing rather than succeeding. So there were constant delays with New Glenn and the BE-4 engine, which is years behind schedule. You can't fail if you don't launch.
And the new CEO (David Limp) used to be in charge of Kindles.
[+] [-] pdonis|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] supportengineer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nordsieck|1 year ago|reply
IMO, this one is the least likely.
There are a lot of problems that need to be over come for Dream Chaser to be crew rated. And AFAIK, they aren't getting NASA money to do it.
[+] [-] renewiltord|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptonector|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaymaths|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] DeathArrow|1 year ago|reply
While EU has none.
[+] [-] ragebol|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] adastra22|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmaroon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] helsinki|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] CHSbeachbum420|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pbreit|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|1 year ago|reply
We had a launch system that could take humans to the moon in 1972.. haven't had one since. Maybe we will get another one in our lifetime, if it is even possible.
[+] [-] skc|1 year ago|reply
Truly awe inspiring stuff happening these days
[+] [-] AnarchismIsCool|1 year ago|reply
I work in the aerospace industry and just watching a depiction of it in a universe where people still just...gave a shit...especially about something other than money, brings about a whole spectrum of emotions.
[+] [-] roer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertox|1 year ago|reply
With Starship it appeared as if it was struggling to lift off, staying for a while burning fuel until it left the launch pad and even then it felt a bit slow at accelerating.
I'll see tomorrow if it was just an illusion.
[+] [-] ericbarrett|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gorkish|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tempnow987|1 year ago|reply
For Falcon 9 - it will look slower on takeoff as well. One reason not mentioned yet is that after engine start, Falcon is held down until all vehicle systems are verified as functioning normally before release for liftoff. So they can do pressure / thrust etc checks on the ground before releasing.
With solid rocket motors especially - once you light those you are pretty committed.
[+] [-] Ductapemaster|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] DylanSp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rdruxn|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] divbzero|1 year ago|reply
https://reuters.com/pictures/boeings-starliner-blasts-off-fi...
[+] [-] dang|1 year ago|reply
Boeing and NASA call off Starliner crew launch minutes before liftoff - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40547338 - June 2024 (47 comments)
Boeing's Starliner Crew Flight Test delayed again, path forward unclear - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40434398 - May 2024 (28 comments)
Boeing Starliner's first crewed mission scrubbed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40281272 - May 2024 (162 comments)
NASA and Boeing Are (Finally) Putting Astronauts on Starliner - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39843148 - March 2024 (9 comments)
Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36879769 - July 2023 (218 comments)
NASA safety panel skeptical of Starliner readiness for crewed flight - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36085531 - May 2023 (27 comments)
Boeing to ground Starliner indefinitely until valve issue solved - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28185195 - Aug 2021 (42 comments)
Boeing Starliner's flight's flaws show “fundamental problem,” NASA says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297564 - Feb 2020 (140 comments)
NASA Shares Initial Findings from Boeing Starliner Orbital Test Investigation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22266747 - Feb 2020 (14 comments)
Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22260731 - Feb 2020 (60 comments)
Boeing reports a $410M charge in case NASA decides Starliner needs another test - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194735 - Jan 2020 (55 comments)
Boeing Starliner updates: Spacecraft flies into wrong orbit, jeopardizing test - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21843988 - Dec 2019 (240 comments)
New Spacesuit Unveiled for Starliner Astronauts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488096 - Jan 2017 (65 comments)
Boeing-SpaceX Team Split Space Taxi Award - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8326845 - Sept 2014 (115 comments)
NASA to Make Major Announcement Today About Astronaut Transport to the ISS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8324848 - Sept 2014 (43 comments)
SpaceX Vies With Boeing as NASA’s Taxi to Station - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8296567 - Sept 2014 (49 comments)
[+] [-] ConcernedCoder|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dm03514|1 year ago|reply
Are there clear guidelines already written? I’m assuming it inherits a lot of rules of general aviation? But since private firms launching into space is new, do the rules and regulations keep up? Or are they still to be written?
[+] [-] slimebot80|1 year ago|reply
It's not mentioned once.
I always see majestic rocket photography promoted on Twitter.
Why not today?
I thought Twitter was the worlds #1 news source.
[+] [-] tibbydudeza|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] LightBug1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dotnet00|1 year ago|reply
On top of that Boeing's launch coverage is nowhere near as fancy as SpaceX (or new space in general, RocketLab and Blue Origin also tend to have pretty decent coverage, although neither of them are doing crewed orbital spaceflight yet). No views of the non-flight-control employees enjoying seeing their work fly, very little live telemetry, low resolution for when they do have live video, mostly CGI views once down to the second stage, no live views from the capsule in space either.
Finally, on top of that, Starliner is kind of just a dead end in its current state. Boeing only built the two it needs for this one contract, and it only flies on Atlas V, which are fully sold out now. So it can only do the 6 contracted ISS missions and then it's done until someone is willing to pay to have Starliner+Vulcan Centaur crew rated.
[+] [-] luuurker|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] xnx|1 year ago|reply
Also 30 days ago.
[+] [-] dmix|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wigster|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wannacboatmovie|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] KenArrari|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] black_13|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] deciplex|1 year ago|reply
I don't know if he still takes that approach. In fact, I kind of doubt he ever really did, but he certainly projected that image publicly, and most importantly to workers of those companies - whether he "really believed" it I guess is a moot point.
When you take the "businesses exist to return a profit to shareholders" approach you're always going to focus on leadership that has a track record of doing that, even if that excludes building a good product or for that matter even the long-term viability of the business. Thus, you see these CEO hires that don't seem to make sense - most of us unconsciously still think of businesses as things created to make a thing or do a specific thing, because that's a natural thing to believe.
Anyway I think you can attribute some of the success of both to this, as well as Musk's public image at least ca 2008-2018 or so.
[+] [-] protocolture|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]