…has been reassigned. A lot of speculation as to the reason and timing in this thread.
It’s kind of wild that the NASA official who is arguably most responsible for SpaceX getting a commercial crew contract a decade ago is getting pushed out at the same time Dragon saves the agency’s astronauts.https://t.co/IwPeRs1x8T
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) August 24, 2024
It’s unclear to me whether he is being blamed for Starliner, or if this is Boeing’s revenge for the NASA decision to rescue with Crew Dragon. But if the latter, it would have been pressure coming from Boeing’s friends on the Hill.
[Sunday-morning update]
Will Boeing ever deliver on its contract?
With all the talk a decade ago about how SpaceX wouldn’t deliver and how prudent it was to give the lion’s share of the funds to Boeing, there should be plenty of crow to go around.
[Update a few minutes later]
Boeing was paid billions more than SpaceX to be seven years late on a mission it could not complete . . . And will now be rescued from total disaster by SpaceX
— Ashlee Vance (@ashleevance) August 25, 2024
Never forget, many bureaucrats wanted to sole source all of this to Boeing. pic.twitter.com/QEJ0ERuDq8
[Update late morning]
Some may be wondering what I think about the Starliner decision in the context of my book and our need to be willing to accept higher levels of risk. The point of the book was not that we should be reckless, but that the risk must match the reward.
— SafeNotAnOption (@SafeNotAnOption) August 25, 2024
There was no payoff in risking the astronaut's lives to come home in a flawed vehicle, other than to Boeing's pride (which would be an empty vessel by now if they had a smidgen of self awareness) and their bottom line.
— SafeNotAnOption (@SafeNotAnOption) August 25, 2024
I’ve been reading the comments at Arse Technica about the decision to bring Starliner down uncrewed, and while they’re better than most of Arse’s comment threads, nobody is calling out NASA’s culpability in this mess – NASA bought off on everything that has gone wrong with Starliner, so they should be getting pilloried almost as much as Boeing, and there should be some heads rolling at NASA – just maybe not the person who is arguably one of the main people that put NASA in the position of having a choice now.
Pournelle’s Iron Law applies to NASA just as much as it does to, say, the FBI.
I was wondering if being fired from NASA is better in some ways than being laid off by NASA.
I’d say either is preferable to being killed by NASA.
or the any of the 3 letter agencies. Is HRC a 3 letter agency?
“Boeing’s friends on the Hill.” I have to wonder why they even still have such. And why we don’t have some enterprising journalists asking them that question.
– Money. They lobby hard.
– Future “consulting” jobs. The revolving door is real, and still working.
Should a Cascade of Miracles come to pass, and Trump to take power once more, this fellow sounds like an excellent candidate for NASA Director…
This 100% this. The same idea came into my head.
I was astonished to read that the cause of the thruster issue was the swelling of teflon poppets in the NTO side of the thruster feed system. Teflon!?!?! You don’t use teflon in NTO applications, you use kalrez. Rocketdyne had learned that lesson in spades, and I was even more astonished to find that Aerojet-Rocketdyne had made them. My wife worked at Rocketdyne many years ago, and told me that Aerojet has been putting its own people in charge there ever since the acquisition. Aerojet wasn’t a liquid rocket engine manufacturer, and has now converted Rocketdyne into an incompetent liquid rocket engine manufacturer.
Sigh sad. But not an atypical story either. I’ve encountered same in most shocking situations as a consultant. I won’t mention who, but I remember applying a technique at a client company that not only didn’t have current employees cognizant of it, but for crying out loud, the company itself had invented it 20 years previously!
Will Boeing ever deliver on its contract?
Reading the Ars Technica story, I was struck by this finale to the story by Stephen Clark:
However, once NASA and its partners give the “go” to nudge the ISS out of orbit, its fiery plunge through the atmosphere will not just be the coda to 30-plus years of space station operations, it may also mark the end of Boeing’s foray into the realm of commercial human spaceflight.
Besides that being the day I buy a hard-hat for use indoors I think maybe Clark defines the outcome a little too narrowly. I’d place NASA in that bucket of end of human spaceflight forays as well. At least doing so on its own… Space exploration to be confined to what is doable/reachable by its commercial partners. Partners indeed, ahem.
Like in the days of rail, a government team of geologists is sent to “explore” that cave that is now affordably reachable from the spur line off the Union Pacific main line.