The wait is over. NASA officials unanimously decided that it was not safe to return the Boeing Starliner astronauts to Earth using the Starliner capsule. Instead, the pair will be returning on a SpaceX Dragon capsule in February 2025. Unfortunately, this means that to make room for the two, the crew coming up on the SpaceX craft will be reduced from 4 to 2.
Boeing has learned a lesson from the whole experience: they will never do another fixed price development contract. Apparently things are too different and difficult outside the cost-plus contracting world. Keep in mind that Boeing received twice as much money as SpaceX to accomplish the same thing and has yet to have a successful mission while SpaceX has been operating crewed craft for years.
The newest permanent module. They can't undock it until (and unless) they figure out how to program it to do so since the hatch isn't big enough for an astronaut to do an EVA.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that Boeing took the contract because it figured that it would be easy money in the initial stages, but that it would never be expected to deliver a working product once the Biden Administration took over.
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