History, Politics And Current Affairs

Apparently somebody at Boeing thought it was a good decision to take this fight public. NASA is probably not amused.

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/181953 ... 60593.1040

Oh, jeez.

brovane wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 3:07 pm Apparently somebody at Boeing thought it was a good decision to take this fight public. NASA is probably not amused.

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/181953 ... 60593.1040

Whoever came up with needs to have the following done to them:

1. Locked in a dark room.

2. Music piped in: Polka, badly played bagpipes, and songs voted in by the board.

3. Tribbles drop on them.

jemhouston wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 5:03 pm

brovane wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 3:07 pm Apparently somebody at Boeing thought it was a good decision to take this fight public. NASA is probably not amused.

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/181953 ... 60593.1040

Whoever came up with needs to have the following done to them:

1. Locked in a dark room.

2. Music piped in: Polka, badly played bagpipes, and songs voted in by the board.

3. Tribbles drop on them.

HOLLABACK GIRL ON WAR EMERGENCY POWER!

“Entertaining” to say the least.

In defense of Boeing (says cautiously) aren’t the leaks/problems in the Service Module and not the capsule?

The Service Module that is jettisoned prior to re-entry?

That’s a question

If so, isn’t NASA being rather overly cautious?

Not that I want to defend either at this point.

(Selling all Boeing stocks…)

They are, but don't they use that gas to pressurize the fuel tanks?

Belushi TD

Poohbah wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 5:35 pm

jemhouston wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 5:03 pm

brovane wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 3:07 pm Apparently somebody at Boeing thought it was a good decision to take this fight public. NASA is probably not amused.

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/181953 ... 60593.1040

Whoever came up with needs to have the following done to them:

1. Locked in a dark room.

2. Music piped in: Polka, badly played bagpipes, and songs voted in by the board.

3. Tribbles drop on them.

HOLLABACK GIRL ON WAR EMERGENCY POWER!

You're being too nice.

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 7:00 pm “Entertaining” to say the least.

In defense of Boeing (says cautiously) aren’t the leaks/problems in the Service Module and not the capsule?

The Service Module that is jettisoned prior to re-entry?

That’s a question

If so, isn’t NASA being rather overly cautious?

Not that I want to defend either at this point.

(Selling all Boeing stocks…)

I think the problem might be that in all the testing done on the ground, Boeing hasn't found a root cause for the problem. This is making it difficult for NASA to quantify how safe it is for it's astronauts to come home on Starliner. NASA hasn't been able to narrow down the fault tree analysis to rule out a potential safety critical failure. Yes it is with the Service Module but if you have thrusters not working properly on the Service Module the capsule itself might not get into the proper flight path for re-entry. Or potentially worse, the service module might not separately cleanly from the Capsule as it is jettisoned. From what I can see, NASA engineering's are being cautious. With Boeing they have a good reason for being cautious.

O they never returned
No, they never returned
And their fate is still unlearned
They will ride forever in the dead Starliner
They're the crew who never returned

Something I’ve been thinking about, you think there’s a chance that NASA might not even feel comfortable with Starliner undocking from the ISS and flying back empty?

Because if they aren’t sure if the thrusters will work properly, wouldn’t they have to consider the possibility that it’d become uncontrollable after undocking, and then potentially impacting the ISS itself?

Micael, honestly that is a possibility (Disclosure, I'm not qualified to judge how likely or plausible it is) that I would have rejected as absurd just a few years ago, but the culture of rot at Boeing and just for companies and bureaucracies in general that are involved is so bad that I can't reject it now.

I was thinking about the rather un-awesome 100000 simulations in the X post. So my guess is they can't find what is wrong with the thrusters as such, but have monte carloed lots of reentry attempts with individual thrusters randomly failing at what they have determined is a likely failure rate. My guess is you might need to fire 2-4 thruster nozzles to replace one failed nozzle, so you get a cascading problem with needing to run more thrusters for longer as each one fails, which in turn are then more likely to fail.

Un-awesome? Yes, I routinely run multifactor sims that use 4 instances on 5 PCs and take a month 24/7. A run takes 5 minutes to half an hour. We're at the point where we might want to run the supercomputer cluster but licensing is an issue, and the crash/aero guys would hate me. Fun fact we used to have 100 supercomputers, due to the sunk cost fallacy. Yes nerdy IT boy, my phone>>your Cray . For vastly irritating reasons my sims are single threaded, hence parallel only works at the run level rather than inside a run. Irritatingly competing products manage to parallelize the job, but we dance with the one we brung, for various reasons.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/n ... er-issues/

NASA is now delaying crew-9. The current version of the software loaded on Starliner doesn't support automated undocking and re-entry without a crew. They would need to upload new software which is complicated. By delaying Crew-9, this gives NASA and Boeing more time to study the problem and if necessary make the necessary software updates to Starliner to support a un-manned departure and re-entry.

brovane wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 7:06 pm https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/n ... er-issues/

NASA is now delaying crew-9. The current version of the software loaded on Starliner doesn't support automated undocking and re-entry with a crew. They would need to upload new software which is complicated. By delaying Crew-9, this gives NASA and Boeing more time to study the problem and if necessary make the necessary software updates to Starliner to support a un-manned departure and re-entry.

NASA and Boeing look like a couple of monkeys attempting to engage in conjugal relations with a football...

brovane wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 7:06 pm https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/n ... er-issues/

NASA is now delaying crew-9. The current version of the software loaded on Starliner doesn't support automated undocking and re-entry without a crew. They would need to upload new software which is complicated. By delaying Crew-9, this gives NASA and Boeing more time to study the problem and if necessary make the necessary software updates to Starliner to support a un-manned departure and re-entry.

Considering that they did a fully automated flight with dock/undock before this one its shocking that they didn't include the capability in this flight's software.

Then again, its Boeing.

Poohbah wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 7:34 pm

brovane wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 7:06 pm https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/n ... er-issues/

NASA is now delaying crew-9. The current version of the software loaded on Starliner doesn't support automated undocking and re-entry with a crew. They would need to upload new software which is complicated. By delaying Crew-9, this gives NASA and Boeing more time to study the problem and if necessary make the necessary software updates to Starliner to support a un-manned departure and re-entry.

NASA and Boeing look like a couple of monkeys attempting to engage in conjugal relations with a football...

Gee thanks for the image.

brovane wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 7:06 pm https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/n ... er-issues/

NASA is now delaying crew-9. The current version of the software loaded on Starliner doesn't support automated undocking and re-entry without a crew. They would need to upload new software which is complicated. By delaying Crew-9, this gives NASA and Boeing more time to study the problem and if necessary make the necessary software updates to Starliner to support a un-manned departure and re-entry.

I think the cause is obvious. NASA didn't pay Boeing the $459.95 monthly software subscription for the automated undocking feature....

Somebody elsewhere pointed out that including automatic undocking on a crewed mission introduces a new FMEA top level risk - accidental initiation of undocking. Byeeee

Interesting take that I hadn't thought about until now. From a political stand-point with a election coming soon and Harris in charge of the National Space Council. Nelson knows there is zero room for any risk taking with astronauts lives right now. Unless NASA is 100% confident in Starliner then the astronauts will return on Crew Dragon and Boeing gets the public embarrassment of having their astronauts returning on a SpaceX Capsule. Nelson has said the final decision rests with him.

FYI - The crew-9 delay will also mean moving the launch to LC-40 instead of LC-39A because LC-39A has to be prepared for the FH Launch of Europa Clipper in October. Not sure of the impact on the Polaris Dawn crew launch. Originally crew-9 had moved in front of it because SpaceX had prioritized NASA's crew launch.

Apparently a month to update the software in the capsule?

The resupply mission with the astronauts’ change of clothes reached orbit but failed to refire to make the rendezvous.

When it rains……

Getting to be quite the FUBAR