Jul 12, 2024 07:22 PM
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/boeing-s...-1.7243096
EXCERPTS: [...] To date, the astronauts are still on board the ISS while Boeing tests its [Starliner's] thrusters at its facility in White Sands, N.M. No return date has been set, though it will likely be at the end of July, according to a news conference on Wednesday. Optically, it's been a nightmare for Boeing, a company that, in recent years, has faced a barrage of safety mishaps with its commercial aircraft and is deeply in need of a public relations win...
[...] When NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX the contracts to take astronauts to the ISS, they didn't receive the same compensation: Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion US, while SpaceX received $2.6 billion US.
At the time, it was widely believed that Boeing — having been in the space game since the 1960s — would get to the ISS first. How wrong they were.
But is it fair to compare Boeing and SpaceX? Dan Dumbacher, an engineer and former NASA official who is now the CEO of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, says it's not.
He notes that Boeing, as an organization, has experience in spaceflight that predates the Apollo program of the 1960s.
"The people themselves do not," he said. "There's a misconception, I think, that just because the organization did it in the past that the organization can do it now. No, they're different people, with different experience levels."
As well — as has been demonstrated to the public lately — there's the difference between how SpaceX and Boeing operate.
"We don't talk enough about the fact … that the workforce today doesn't have as much opportunity to go build hardware, fly it, test it, break it and see what happens," he said.
However, SpaceX does just that. The company tests its spacecraft by building them, flying them — often having them blow up in the earliest iterations — and then doing that over and over again until they fly successfully.
That's not the way Boeing or NASA works.
In its earliest days, NASA operated much in the same way SpaceX does. But since the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, which killed 14 astronauts, it has become more risk averse. Now it appears as though NASA has also let that seep into uncrewed hardware tests.
As for Boeing, it's not easy to let rockets or spacecraft blow up when you have investors breathing down your neck. The privately owned SpaceX doesn't face that same scrutiny... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: [...] To date, the astronauts are still on board the ISS while Boeing tests its [Starliner's] thrusters at its facility in White Sands, N.M. No return date has been set, though it will likely be at the end of July, according to a news conference on Wednesday. Optically, it's been a nightmare for Boeing, a company that, in recent years, has faced a barrage of safety mishaps with its commercial aircraft and is deeply in need of a public relations win...
[...] When NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX the contracts to take astronauts to the ISS, they didn't receive the same compensation: Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion US, while SpaceX received $2.6 billion US.
At the time, it was widely believed that Boeing — having been in the space game since the 1960s — would get to the ISS first. How wrong they were.
But is it fair to compare Boeing and SpaceX? Dan Dumbacher, an engineer and former NASA official who is now the CEO of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, says it's not.
He notes that Boeing, as an organization, has experience in spaceflight that predates the Apollo program of the 1960s.
"The people themselves do not," he said. "There's a misconception, I think, that just because the organization did it in the past that the organization can do it now. No, they're different people, with different experience levels."
As well — as has been demonstrated to the public lately — there's the difference between how SpaceX and Boeing operate.
"We don't talk enough about the fact … that the workforce today doesn't have as much opportunity to go build hardware, fly it, test it, break it and see what happens," he said.
However, SpaceX does just that. The company tests its spacecraft by building them, flying them — often having them blow up in the earliest iterations — and then doing that over and over again until they fly successfully.
That's not the way Boeing or NASA works.
In its earliest days, NASA operated much in the same way SpaceX does. But since the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, which killed 14 astronauts, it has become more risk averse. Now it appears as though NASA has also let that seep into uncrewed hardware tests.
As for Boeing, it's not easy to let rockets or spacecraft blow up when you have investors breathing down your neck. The privately owned SpaceX doesn't face that same scrutiny... (MORE - missing details)