I don't think one follows the other. In an emergency, the Starliner is still possibly safer than jamming everyone into the Dragon capsule. "We think there is a much safer option" is different than saying "We wouldn't let them use that even in an emergency". I'd probably vote for them to leave on the Dragon jammed in like sardines, but the actual plan may still differ. Particularly in the time between now and installing the extra seats.Starliner CFT is already, de facto, not cleared for emergency return anymore since yesterday (at least); what NASA said about Starliner still being approved is purely diplomatic.
I hope you're right, because if not the ISS is in the unprecedented situation of not having enough emergency seats for its crew until they put the makeshift seating on crew 8, but I have my source for this assertion.I don't think one follows the other. In an emergency, the Starliner is still possibly safer than jamming everyone into the Dragon capsule. "We think there is a much safer option" is different than saying "We wouldn't let them use that even in an emergency". I'd probably vote for them to leave on the Dragon jammed in like sardines, but the actual plan may still differ. Particularly in the time between now and installing the extra seats.
They are sending up two less on the next Crew Dragon to make room for the marooned Starliner crew to come back on. Don't see that as being jammed in like canned sardines...I don't think one follows the other. In an emergency, the Starliner is still possibly safer than jamming everyone into the Dragon capsule. "We think there is a much safer option" is different than saying "We wouldn't let them use that even in an emergency". I'd probably vote for them to leave on the Dragon jammed in like sardines, but the actual plan may still differ. Particularly in the time between now and installing the extra seats.
They are adding make-shift seats to the Dragon capsule currently up there (Crew 8) because that will be the only option for a window of time. They want it done before Starliner departs. We were talking about emergency use as a lifeboat, not the plan to bring them home in the next rotation.They are sending up two less on the next Crew Dragon to make rom for the marooned Starliner crew to come back on. Don't see that as being jammed in like canned sardines...
It’s already been confirmed that in case of a dire emergency they’ll use Starliner as the return craft. Once it goes they’ll have to go into the cargo section of the already docked Dragon, and once the new Dragon arrives they’ll use that.Starliner CFT is already, de facto, not cleared for emergency return anymore since yesterday (at least); what NASA said about Starliner still being approved is purely diplomatic.
Next ISS flight is Crew-9 in September 24.
The Crew is needed on ISS, also it cargo.
Follow Cargo flight is CRS-31 in October.
SpaceX can't use the Cargo version for return of both, it missing Seats, Crew controls and life-support.
However it could bring two seats and spaceX suits for Crew-9 return, theoretical...
Launching Crew-9 with only two Astronauts, result in two trained astronauts missing, who are needed on ISS.Why do you say "theoretical?"
Launching Crew-9 with only two Astronauts, result in two trained astronauts missing, who are needed on ISS.
build in the two seats reduce payload of Crew-9 to zero kg, but would be the fast solution for it.
“A couple years ago, we made the decision — knowing that this was a test flight — to make sure that we had the right resources, supplies and training for the crew, just in case they needed to be on ISS, for whatever reason, for a longer period of time,” said Dana Weigel, NASA’s manager of the International Space Station Program, during an Aug. 7 briefing.
“Butch and Suni are fully trained,” Weigel added. “They’re capable and current with EVA (spacewalks), with robotics, with all the things we need them to do.”
“It’s shameful. I’m embarrassed, I’m horrified,” the employee said.
With morale “in the toilet,” the worker claimed that many in Boeing are blaming NASA for the humiliation.
Boeing maintains its Starliner craft could safely get the astronauts back to Earth after putting them on the ISS during its maiden crewed flight on June 5.
With morale “in the toilet,” the worker claimed that many in Boeing are blaming NASA for the humiliation.
About 25 years ago.They should be blaming Boeing's own short-sighted, profit obsessed senior management that's run by bean-counters not by execs with an engineering background the way used to be before the Boeing/McD merger.
How long before Boeing starts being referred to as McBoeing?
Lol. I'm sure if I look at LI we have tons of contacts...Eric needs to interview you (assuming he hasn't on the down low.)
Eric needs to interview you (assuming he hasn't on the down low.)
I didn't even try, I studied computer science and biology, I got a job as a civil servant in the tax administration, I specialized in tax advice for the rich and I have saved myself a lot of professional frustrations.Huh - so this is what actual crewed spaceflight in the twenty-first century looks like. Curse you, Stanley Kubrick, and Gerry and Sylvia Anderson as well, for thoroughly poisoning an impressionable German teenage boy's mind in the latter part of the last millennium with your grandiose space visions - just maybe, I could have become a successful stock broker or a filthy rich investment banker rather than an aerospace engineer instead...
BergerWhich Eric are you referring too?
Your loss. I was in the spaceflight industry for the last 41 years and it was great. And it was in all three sectors (military, commercial and civil). Got to work on 30 or so Shuttle missions (including all the military ones). Was part of one of the early new space projects (Spacehab). Supported 13 military ELV launches including the last Titan 34D and the first Titan IV. Directly involved with 25 NASA missions launched on Delta II, Atlas V, Delta IV Heavy, Falcon 9 and Ariane V and supported 13 other ones. Four Mars rovers, 1 solar probe, Lunar, Mars and Jupiter orbiters, weather sats, space station resupply, space telescopes, etcI didn't even try, I studied computer science and biology, I got a job as a civil servant in the tax administration, I specialized in tax advice for the rich and I have saved myself a lot of professional frustrations.
It's a good idea, when ET comes to exterminate us it will believe that we have degenerated and will stop considering us a danger. False alarm.Ya know, that's an idea, when Starliner serves them lemons, you go and make lemonade ...
(seen on Tumblr just now)
View attachment 738799
The orangutans in the film were a superior scientific caste that believed flight impossible. Then Charlton Heston makes a paper airplane and causes them an intellectual anaphylactic shock.That is more Joke on The Planet of the Apes
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Also illustration of current Boeing Management in Chicago...
...news
View: https://twitter.com/_jaykeegan_/status/1828284426804961773
My father (who was a longtime Boeing engineer) has said the same thing. Nobody in his division liked the purchase.Even by the time I joined Boeing in August 1998, the saying in a former Rockwell campus in SoCal was that McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's own money. I've heard this saying repeated countless times over the past few decades, and each time it made a little more sense to me.
Even with the decision already made and the crew no longer returning on Starliner, teams are still busy testing the spacecraft in preparation for an upcoming undocking. One major hurdle is the fact that the main thruster complications have been going on within the spacecraft’s service module. This will be jettisoned and burn up upon reentry meaning the next week is some of the last time available to test and gather data.
There also are concerns as to whether or not the vehicle will survive reentry which, no matter how small, is the reason it will be uncrewed. Here I will go more in-depth into the return date and time, final spacecraft testing, reentry concerns, and more.
NASA exec [Unnamed].:
“And they made that perfectly clear to us [“Boeing wasn’t happy with the decision to cancel the manned return flight],”. But what’s the headline if there’s a catastrophic failure? It’s not ‘Boeing killed two astronauts,’ it’s ‘NASA killed two astronauts.’ So no, it’s better safe than sorry.”
“And they made that perfectly clear to us [“Boeing wasn’t happy with the decision to cancel the manned return flight],”. But what’s the headline if there’s a catastrophic failure? It’s not ‘Boeing killed two astronauts,’ it’s ‘NASA killed two astronauts.’ So no, it’s better safe than sorry.”
They have neatly sidestepped that, as I said before. If nothing goes wrong, it is just " safety first ". No-one but Boeing will mutter. If they lose Starliner now, then it potentially becomes a "Boeing insisted we put Butch and Suni on it"-fiasco. By publicly complaining beforehand, Boeing employees have put themselves in a worse position, imo. Before I thought it'd be a short story if they lost the capsule unmanned. This (over-?)confidence gives it legs.Confirming somewhat that the public affair dimension has outsized the technical aspects:
"But what’s the headline if there’s a catastrophic failure? It’s not ‘Boeing killed two astronauts,’ it’s ‘NASA killed two astronauts.’ So no, it’s better safe than sorry.”