All posts by Rand Simberg

Safe Is Not An Option

Thoughts on flight rationale from Wayne Hale.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, now I see why Wayne wrote that:

As NASA is working to balance all of these risks—the risk to crew on board Starliner, the risk of an uncrewed departure to the ISS, the risk to astronauts on board the space station, and more — Boeing has been lobbying to bring Starliner home with crew. Although NASA and Boeing engineers have yet to identify a root cause for the failure of the thrusters, Boeing has been urging NASA to accept “flight rationale” as a substitute. That is, Boeing believes it has provided enough data to NASA to be confident the thrusters will not fail in a catastrophic manner.

Boeing seems willing to risk the lives of the astronauts to save the vehicle. I don’t personally think it’s worth saving. I wonder what Boeing’s new CEO thinks?