Boeing Sent Two Astronauts Into Space. Now It Needs to Get Them Home.
Helium leaks and thruster problems prompt NASA and Boeing to delay astronauts' return on company's Starliner vehicle
Boeing succeeded in getting NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, following weeks of delays. Returning them to Earth on the same spacecraft is proving another challenge.
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That's still worrying in its own way that the US doesn't have enough competent engineers in the entire country to be able to have two functioning spacecraft companies at the same time.
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You say that like its just a matter of know how. Almost no one does rocketry because of the insane difficulty and costs associated with this. Spacex made it profitable but they literally paved the way thanks to a millionaire blowing $100M of his own money on a gamble that almost failed to pay off. Its not about competence, its about how many companies are willing to fund several multi-ten to multi-hundred million dollar near guaranteed failures to achieve competence in a field where youre decades behind a competitor.
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Boeing is an established company. Its engineer competence went down right along the time frame when SpaceX began picking up the best engineers.
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Yeah, they went down when a competing company had over $100M invested in its rocket, achieved success, and sought to make a bigger one with the ability to land. SpaceX is the company who made that massive investment which is why they won. Blue Origin hasnt even launched, they keep going back to the drawing board which is exactly the issue, they treat their investment carefully before launching rather than blowing the tens of millions needed to figure out where the frickups actually are. Boeing has just one real launch and it happened like 2 weeks ago. No rocket will be a one hit wonder due to engineering, you really need a lot of trial and error, but its daunting because one trial and guaranteed error means 40 million down the drain. SpaceX succeeded literally because of their "just pour more money into the fire until it stops burning" strategy.
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this supports my point?
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I guess, but established company really doesn't mean much here. It may be established in planes but not so much in rocketry. Really love spacex for exactly that, they gave zero fricks and just funded the dream. The Expanse will be our reality soon boys
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The US and China are the only relevant countries for this century.
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Chinas on the move but still at least 15 yrs behind. Rocket daddys supremacy is unparalleled
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True, but being 15 years of the US still puts you ahead of the rest of the world.
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