Starliner lands in New Mexico unmanned without problems
Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule landed last night at White Sands in New Mexico, the undocking, de-orbit, and descent occurring as planned with no hitches.
The mission however was not a full success. Intended as the first manned demo flight of the capsule, it did not complete that demonstration. It took astronauts up to ISS, but did not bring them home. NASA made the decision that the technical problems during launch and docking to ISS were sufficient enough to preclude putting the astronauts back on board for the return flight.
NASA says it “will review all mission-related data” before deciding whether to certify the capsule for operational manned flights. The agency has essentially two choices. First, it could decide that the successful return with no hitches of this manned flight, even with no one on board, fulfilled Boeing’s obligations. It will certify the capsule, allowing Starliner’s next manned mission to fly with NASA paying the bill. Doing so however would likely expose NASA to a lot of bad publicity, since the press right now sees Boeing as the root of all technical evil, and will pile on to the agency for putting safety last.
Second, NASA could avoid that bad press and play hard-nosed and demand another manned demo flight, on Boeing’s dime, as required by contract. If so, however, expect Boeing to refuse to do it, citing the cost and the company’s fiscal responsibility to its shareholders. Even if successful Boeing is unlikely to ever recover those costs through passenger sales.
Based on this negotiating situation, I predict NASA will choose the former. The successful landing suggests this is probably the right decision. It however will not do so immediately, but will release a series of announcements touting the positive results from its review of that “mission-related data”. By dribbling out each positive result bit-by-bit, the goal will be to soften the press so that when the agency finally certifies Boeing for that next manned mission and thus agrees to pay for it, the press will not pile on so hard.
At least, that will be the agency’s hope. The mainstream propaganda press however doesn’t usually read NASA press releases, and even when it does it knows so little about the subject that it almost always comes to the wrong conclusion. Moreover, its present desire to attack Boeing in all conditions will likely help it report these stories badly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule landed last night at White Sands in New Mexico, the undocking, de-orbit, and descent occurring as planned with no hitches.
The mission however was not a full success. Intended as the first manned demo flight of the capsule, it did not complete that demonstration. It took astronauts up to ISS, but did not bring them home. NASA made the decision that the technical problems during launch and docking to ISS were sufficient enough to preclude putting the astronauts back on board for the return flight.
NASA says it “will review all mission-related data” before deciding whether to certify the capsule for operational manned flights. The agency has essentially two choices. First, it could decide that the successful return with no hitches of this manned flight, even with no one on board, fulfilled Boeing’s obligations. It will certify the capsule, allowing Starliner’s next manned mission to fly with NASA paying the bill. Doing so however would likely expose NASA to a lot of bad publicity, since the press right now sees Boeing as the root of all technical evil, and will pile on to the agency for putting safety last.
Second, NASA could avoid that bad press and play hard-nosed and demand another manned demo flight, on Boeing’s dime, as required by contract. If so, however, expect Boeing to refuse to do it, citing the cost and the company’s fiscal responsibility to its shareholders. Even if successful Boeing is unlikely to ever recover those costs through passenger sales.
Based on this negotiating situation, I predict NASA will choose the former. The successful landing suggests this is probably the right decision. It however will not do so immediately, but will release a series of announcements touting the positive results from its review of that “mission-related data”. By dribbling out each positive result bit-by-bit, the goal will be to soften the press so that when the agency finally certifies Boeing for that next manned mission and thus agrees to pay for it, the press will not pile on so hard.
At least, that will be the agency’s hope. The mainstream propaganda press however doesn’t usually read NASA press releases, and even when it does it knows so little about the subject that it almost always comes to the wrong conclusion. Moreover, its present desire to attack Boeing in all conditions will likely help it report these stories badly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It’s NASA that wants more than one provider of man capable to spacecraft. So it’s play ball with Boeing or wait for Sierra and – maybe – Blue Origin, to bring that capability. And all for what? When ISS is done where else does NASA have to fly astronauts to?
I almost think that Boeing would like plan A (approved as is) and then say that additional flights to the station will not be profitable and leave the business on the table. Either that or they spin that part of Boeing off to someone else, although the number of possible suitors is rather limited (ULA? but they themselves are looking for a suitor). The solution is tough as SpaceX seems to be sucking all the oxygen out of the room by being the first there with greatly reduced costs. Any folks without direct government intervention Like China or ArianeSpace are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Let‘s face it: With the advent of private space access, the USA no longer needs NASA! Except for the JPL, there‘s no mission for NASA, & no need for the 6 or so facilities that support it. Perhaps they could be sold off, like Boeing buying the Michoud facility.
It’s not just that NASA can’t compete – they are holding back SpaceX and others who CAN. When the Chinese beat us back to the moon and are building bases there, it’s not going to be Elon’s fault, it’s going to be NASA’s!!
Eric Berger of Aris Technica has suggested on his X feed that NASA may choose a middle ground option of neither A nor B.
It has the “benefit” from Boeing and NASA’s perspective (but maybe not the taxpayers) of potentially funneling more money to Boeing to fix problems, but outside of the Commercial Crew construct to keep that contract “pure”.
In this business structure, Boeing would get a separate contract to modify Starliner to provide uncrewed cargo delivery and return to and from the ISS. This would permit USG money for Boeing to “get well” with shareholders.
Then the hardware and software modifications necessary for once and for all fixing the leaks, doghouse, thermal and poppet valve problems would be paid in the separate contract and the demonstration (or two) would be done as a “paid for” resupply mission to ISS as an option that could be touted as increased options for “Payload return” .
Berger offers no timeline for this to happen and does not say if, even after this sweetheart deal, there would be time for Boeing to fly some crews to ISS before ISS demise around 2030. I would expect lots of political pressure to make sure those manned flights could occur so that Boeing could get ALL the funding possible under the Commercial Crew structure. Look for SpaceX to get the short end of the stick.
Doubting Thomas: I think Berger’s analysis is excellent. This third option allows NASA to keep Starliner flying with as little bad press as possible, while keeping this terrible company afloat.
Note that the one thing our government and public and press don’t care about is money. It grows on trees. You can spend it like water without worrying about anything.
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address
January 17, 1961
https://youtu.be/OyBNmecVtdU
16:14
M. Murcek,
Where any real competition for SpaceX’s Dragons will come from is still very much an open question. The one thing the ongoing Starliner soap opera makes clear is that the answer to that question will not be Boeing.
But the end of ISS will not be the end of space stations in LEO. Several projects to build commercially-owned LEO space stations are currently underway. Axiom will start its station by attaching modules to ISS, then hive off their whole complex as an independent station once the curtain rings down on ISS. Voyager’s SpaceLab effort has, astutely, I think, gotten co-operation and buy-in from a multinational cast of veteran aerospace players including Airbus and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Vast has attached itself to SpaceX and certain other companies, such as Tom Mueller’s Impulse, that are also part of the SpaceX diaspora. There are several other companies pursuing construction of post-ISS LEO stations and new ones keep popping up.
Tregonsee314,
Selling off Starliner, as is, would be difficult or impossible unless Boeing is now so eager to be shut of the thing that they go the literal “no offer too low” route.
ULA is definitely not a candidate buyer. Boeing is a half-owner of ULA. So ULA buying Starliner would be equivalent to Boeing taking a few bucks out of its right pocket and putting half back into its left and forking over the rest to its ULA co-owner LockMart. LockMart for its part, seems unlikely to look favorably upon such a transaction as it already has a troubled space capsule of its own – Orion – and it’s hard to see how going halfsies on a second such would benefit LM in any way.
David M. Cook,
At its origin, NASA was the R&D-focused NACA. NASA still does some useful R&D and those functions could be consolidated in a revived NACA. The Glenn Research Center would be the best HQ for such an entity, though Ames might also be a contender. I think there’s a decent case to be made for both to be part of a resurrected NACA.
Then there’s NASA’s “science-y” stuff, mostly at JPL, APL and Goddard. Goddard has been the most profligate and tardy of the three so it should be closed. JPL has been dicing with Goddard for the lead in science-y institutional incompetence in recent years. A case can certainly be made for closing JPL outright. Short of that, its management should all be cashiered and APL allowed to run the combined remnant.
NASA has been more and more an “operations” organization these past 50 years, with the Shuttle, ISS, a failed manned lunar program (Constellation) and a failing successor (Artemis) gobbling the majority of its budget and headcount. All of that needs to go. MSFC should be treated like Rome did Carthage. Michoud, more and more obviously worthless as an actual production facility, should be sold off to, say, Public Storage which could put it to much better use. The Stennis Center seems attractive enough to commercial rocket companies to likely make a go of continuing in operation as a purely Test-Stands-By-The-Slice commercial entity once spun out of the current NASA.
Ray Van Dune,
Compared to other entities in the Biden-Harris regime’s executive branch, NASA is a minor player in any holding back of SpaceX. If – as I fervently hope proves the case – we are forever done with that pathological duo next January, I expect the anti-SpaceX shenanigans to all come to a screeching stop.
As for the PRC, it is, indeed, in a Moon race, but with itself to see if it can contrive to get at least a couple of people there in some fashion before the regime finally finishes rattling to pieces – a process that has been ongoing since the late 2000-teens and which continues to pick up speed. Right now, collapse seems to have the lead along the backstretch.
Doubting Thomas,
Berger, at Ars has, without question, the best stable of embedded snitches in the space journalism game so I always take anything he has to say about space industry inside baseball very seriously.
There will certainly be some sort of PR-influenced dance going on between NASA and Boeing behind closed doors, but, whatever the details eventually prove to be, I don’t think it will have any long-term significance for future American manned spaceflight efforts. These will, more and more, be commercial in origin and Starliner simply has crummy economics even if its many physical failings can somehow be adequately addressed. Builders and operators of future commercial LEO space stations will have balance sheets to concern themselves with. Boeing’s space operations have little experience selling anything to any entity except the U.S. government, with the sole exception of its comsat business. Even there, most of the sales go to entities owned and operated by foreign governments. Boeing is just completely out of its depth trying to sell against a guy who is also in the freakin’ car business.
The only way SpaceX gets the short end of any stick is if we allow the Democrats to steal another election.
Eric Berger did a very good segment with Glenn Beck, well worth a listen.
You want Hour 3, from the 9-5-24 podcast, it’s the first 15-minute block.
https://www.glennbeck.com/st/podcast
“A case can certainly be made for closing JPL outright. ”
Unless something has changed (and I didn’t notice) in the last few years, JPL is not a NASA center. JPL is owned and operated by Caltech; NASA is just its anchor customer. So Congress couldn’t “close” JPL outright, although pulling all NASA funding would certainly put it in dire straits.
By the way, notice the massive positive correlation between “NASA affiliated” and “profligate and tardy” among these three centers? (APL is owned and operated by Johns Hopkins, and acquired NASA as an anchor customer considerably later than JPL.)
What Berger seemed to have in mind was a single, cargo mission of Starliner to ISS, presumably sometime in 2025 after Boeing has remediated the propulsion and software issues. In effect, it would really be another (third) Orbital Test Flight, done for the purpose of proving it was sufficiently trustworthy to certify for operational crew transport to ISS. If it could be executed without incident, Starliner would then be certified for operational crew missions, presumably starting in late 2026 or 2027.
What was unclear to me was whether this was Berger’s idea, or something being quietly discussed at NASA, relayed to him by his sources there. Either way, NASA is certainly aware of the idea now.
I don’t think this is the worse idea I have ever heard, though I do think that in justice, Boeing ought to pay for it. But politically, appropriating the money for this special one-off cargo test flight is probably the kind of thing that find some favor on the Hill, especially if the alternative is that Boeing just bails out of the Commercial Crew program altogether.
Hello Dick,
Where any real competition for SpaceX’s Dragons will come from is still very much an open question.
Honestly, I can’t help but wonder if the competition will come from a Blue Origin crew vehicle – something they have been playing with at least conceptually since their initial bid in the early phases of Commercial Crew, and which would be a way to service their Orbital Reef space station, if it ever happens. Certainly they have the resources to do it, and they seem to be a more capable engineering outfit than Boeing is at this point.
But yes, otherwise, like you I am skeptical that Starliner has much of a future.
All these private companies suddenly smell money in building / running space stations. Is it going to be all private money? Mostly? Any?
To Robert, et al. From the perspective of history, have we not seen something very much like this in the case of the rise of the commercial aviation industry in the early 20th Century?* I am not knowledgeable enough to know how far this analogy might be pursued — surely some of the better informed readership could help here — but this looks like history repeating itself to me.
*But suppose, in an alternative timeline, there had been something like a National Aeronautics Administration that “coordinated” (hamstrung) the efforts of these aviation pioneers… Fortunately, there was not so much regulation back then.
At the core of all of this, and reflected in many of the comments, is the idea that — per Robert’s lengthy advocacy for such a development — the torch is being passed from NASA to sundry players in the private sector, and it’s about time.
And don’t forget that NASA awarded nearly double the contract value for the development of Starliner as it did for Dragon!
Ps. As soon as I saw that the name of the Boeing spacecraft incorporated the phrase “-liner”, I said to myself “Uh-oh – airplane thinking!”
Here’s what NASA says about JPL
“JPL and the Space Age: The American Rocketeer”
NASA/JPL 2022
https://youtu.be/Ykl57izCofs
1:29:24
Mr. Z.,
A belated quibble about your headline – Starliner’s return was not trouble-free. One of the thrusters on the crew portion of the vehicle failed – a first for Starliner so far as I know. At least NASA and Boeing can examine the actual hardware in this particular case. There was also a glitch with one of the GPS receivers on-board. There were backups for both the balky thruster and the GPS receiver but trouble is still trouble.
wayne,
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address is right up there with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address in terms of the amount of wisdom packed into relatively few words. The Left certainly never tires of belaboring the Military-Industrial Complex part of it. But they provide zero amplification to Eisenhower’s at least equal warning against the rise of an arrogant academic-technocratic elite. I wonder why that is?
The Beck thing with Berger was pretty good – once one got past the godawful user interface of Beck’s website and could actually find the thing and get it to play.
Call Me Ishmael,
I’m not sure whether CalTech actually owns JPL outright, but NASA provides the vast majority of its funding and CalTech’s involvement is mainly managerial. The relationship is roughly the same as the University of California’s long-time managerial involvement with the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. It’s the failures of said management, in the case of JPL, that have lately been at issue. There isn’t any doubt that if NASA pulled the money plug, JPL would dry up and blow away virtually overnight.
I’m aware that, compared to JPL, APL is a Johnny-come-lately. I agree that, as a result, APL has not yet had time to develop the sloppy and entitled management culture one sees so flagrantly at JPL. That’s why I suggested, at a minimum, amputating JPL’s management and handing the job to APL. In another 25 or 30 years it may prove necessary to treat APL the same way, but immediate problems take priority. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.
Richard M,
I’m sure that Berger is correct that some weasely “solution” to the Starliner mess will be worked out that at least attempts to minimize further damage to both Boeing’s reputation and its exchequer. As with the flipping, flopping and thrashing around that will also accompany the eventual ends of the equally troubled SLS and Orion projects, the twists, turns and gory details will, no doubt, prove fascinating and I look forward to every word Eric will write about them. But I strongly suspect we will have all three – Starliner, SLS and Orion – in our rear view mirrors by the end of the decade. I hope I’m still around to see all three in their richly-deserved graves.
As for what will compete with SpaceX’s Dragons during whatever future they have left – and where said thing will come from – I suppose Blue is as good a candidate as any at this point. I have less and less faith, as time wears on, that Sierra Space will ever produce a crew-carrying successor to the Dream Chaser freighter. Thus, if Blue actually intends to proceed with Orbital Reef – something that seems by no means certain at this juncture – it may be forced to roll its own crew transfer vehicle in preference to dealing with SpaceX. The precedent already set by the Kuiper launch contracts seems pretty well dispositive.
The owners of the rest of the in-the-works post-ISS LEO space stations will, I think, be happy to use Dragons for both crew and cargo until, and unless, SpaceX comes up with an even more financially attractive offering based on Starship.
I noticed that NASA’s press release failed to quote any Boeing representatives. Maybe they fear the “I told you so” attitude Boeing undoubtedly has, right now.
____________
Tregonsee314 wrote: “I almost think that Boeing would like plan A (approved as is) and then say that additional flights to the station will not be profitable and leave the business on the table. Either that or they spin that part of Boeing off to someone else, …”
I agree to a possible sale, but for a different reason. The new head of Boeing has a serious mess to clean up. The aero side still has a reputation, although not as good as before, but the space side’s main customer, NASA, is so upset with Boeing that it is not taking any new bids from the company. Selling off the space side may be a good way to stop that hemorrhage, let a better-managed company fix the space division, and allow Boeing to focus on its main product: airliners. Just as selling its share of ULA can raise much needed cash, selling the space division can raise cash to keep the company afloat while it is fixed.
Once Boeing is flying straight and narrow again, they can ponder starting a new space division.
_______________
David M. Cook wrote: “Except for the JPL, there‘s no mission for NASA, & no need for the 6 or so facilities that support it. Perhaps they could be sold off, like Boeing buying the Michoud facility.”
I somewhat disagree. Manned spaceflight has been terribly expensive for NASA, and it has failed to do it well. Manned spaceflight can be turned over to commercial space companies just as manned aviation always has been. NASA has many unmanned missions that are outside of JPL’s purview, but they don’t get quite the attention as JPL’s deep space missions.
I agree with Dick Eagleson that R&D can remain a strength for NASA, especially where aeronautics is concerned (the forgotten small “a” in NaSA).
______________
Ray Van Dune wrote: “It’s not just that NASA can’t compete – they are holding back SpaceX and others who CAN. When the Chinese beat us back to the moon and are building bases there, it’s not going to be Elon’s fault, it’s going to be NASA’s”
We certainly got that impression when Starship was prevented from launching before SLS-Orion’s first launch. We definitely have the impression that a SpaceX manned mission to the Moon is just as discouraged before Artemis can land on the Moon. Perhaps it is time that commercial space risk embarrassing NASA by beating it at its own game.
_______________
Doubting Thomas wrote: “I would expect lots of political pressure to make sure those manned flights could occur so that Boeing could get ALL the funding possible under the Commercial Crew structure. Look for SpaceX to get the short end of the stick.”
I’m not sure that this end of the stick is so short. SpaceX’s Dragon business plan already takes into account Boeing’s contracted manned flights to ISS and assumes Starliner will be used by some of the commercial space stations. If Boeing gets a sweet deal to recover from the debacle NASA just forced upon them, then SpaceX does not lose what it already does not have.
________________
Dick Eagleson wrote: “Berger, at Ars has, without question, the best stable of embedded snitches in the space journalism game so I always take anything he has to say about space industry inside baseball very seriously.”
Yeah. At first I doubted his report that NASA could possibly send Starliner back alone, because the Boeing and NASA engineers seemed satisfied with their research and analysis of the problems. However, Berger clearly has sources higher up, where the fearful leaders fly.
Immediately after they stated that space was risky, NASA announced that Starliner would return crewless, giving as their reasoning the answer to the question: what if something went wrong with the crew on board? They made not an engineering decision or a rational decision but an emotional decision, a political decision. They feared that they might look bad. They even compared the decision to Challenger and Columbia.
That comparison is fallacious. Those two events occurred after many flights with known flaws, but Starliner’s two flaws became known only after launch. Challenger and Columbia’s flaws were dangerous even under normal operations, but Starliner’s flaws become dangerous only if something else goes wrong first. How wrong? Very wrong. Wrong enough that Starliner would have had to go back to ISS rather than deorbit and reenter. Challenger and Columbia did not have that option, and giving the Shuttles that same option was why NASA decided that all the remaining missions would go into the ISS’s orbital plane. They made one exception for the last Hubble servicing mission. I’m not sure what additional known flaws in the Shuttle NASA was safeguarding against, but if there weren’t any known flaws, then that, too, was an emotional decision.
Space is risky. NASA said so during its announcement to return Starliner crewless. So, what if something goes wrong on any mission with crew on board?
For its announcement, only NASA high level managers were present. Boeing and NASA engineering were not represented. This was not an engineering decision.
_____________
M. Murcek asked: “All these private companies suddenly smell money in building / running space stations. Is it going to be all private money? Mostly? Any?”
NASA is partially funding three of the private space station companies, but Vast is its own master. I suspect that SpaceX will use a Starship as a temporary space station, but that is not the business they want to be in. However, they will need to test long term reliability of a manned Starship before they send man to Mars, and that test flight will look a bit like a temporary space station.
Edward said regarding sending Starliner back empty: “This was not an engineering decision.”.
Yes, if Starliner was the only way back then engineering would have determined it was safe enough and had something gone horribly wrong then “space is risky”. But there was a safer alternative. Sure going with Dragon is more inconvenient, but it’s a proven system (of course it’s not without any risk, yes space IS risky) so there was no excuse to take an additional risk using Starliner. The decision was a foregone conclusion unless there had been a new factor (perhaps if Butch or Sunni became ill ).
So the determining factor was the availability of Dragon. And that brings me to something I keep harping on but since there has been discussion about the future of commercial space, I bring it up again. The dominance of SpaceX.
If we go back about ten years ago I expect a lot of us would have been impressed with SpaceX’s progress with Falcon 9, but have figured they are over reaching by trying to compete with Boeing on Commercial Crew, building out a Sat internet service and designing/building a huge Mars rocket. Surely a recipe for disappointment if not bankruptcy.
But here we are. And in the meantime the “more serious” competitors are moving at the usual decades long pace.
Unless Starship runs into major delays SLS is useless. BO is getting close to launching its big rocket but still not yet. Vulcan is ready to go provided it gets engines from BO but can it ever come close to competing on price?
Neutron sounds promising but that’s still a good year away.
And can any of them come close to the rate of launches SpaceX has achieved?
I can’t think of any industry where one player became so dominant just due to the superior design and execution.
Something to ponder.
Hello Dick!
I’m sure that Berger is correct that some weasely “solution” to the Starliner mess will be worked out that at least attempts to minimize further damage to both Boeing’s reputation and its exchequer.
Obviously if it was up to most of us regulars on Behind the Black, we’d tell Boeing to stuff it, or at make ’em at least pay for another test flight mission entirely out of their own pocket if they really want to stick in the program. But just thinking through all this realistically in terms of what the agency wants to do, and can actually get away with, doing a de facto replacement of one of Starliner’s operational flights with another uncrewed test flight in the thinly veiled guise of a “cargo” mission might be the *least bad* possibility if NASA really wants to give Boeing another bite at the apple (which they clearly seem to want to do), and Boeing’s congressional patrons demand it (which I think they will).
Even assuming that actually works, I still tend to doubt that Boeing gets more than the 3 operational flights they currently have contracted on IDIQ…which is probably the minimum slate of missions Boeing can get away with in order to salvage the minimum shareholder requirement of their pride and reputation. And….thinking more broadly, it is, I think, the message NASA leadership wants to send to other commercial space contractors, that on really important programs it is willing to go the extra mile with them when they’re struggling, as a way to encourage them to bid, and encourage their venture backers to keep investing in ’em.
But time will tell in that regard.
As for what will compete with SpaceX’s Dragons during whatever future they have left – and where said thing will come from – I suppose Blue is as good a candidate as any at this point.
I also have my doubts that Orbital Reef is going to happen.
That said, however…
I am also thinking about where the Artemis program might be, say, five years from now, and what that might mean for Blue Origin. That will be at a point, I assume, where Starship is regularly launching and has worked through some more major milestones (at minimum), New Glenn is in regular operation, and they’ve at least got prototypes of Blue Moon and Cislunar Transporter. At that point, you have the concrete *basis*, with some additional work, for commercial replacements (as in, two of them, and politically, I think NASA will need two in order to sell that on the Hill) for SLS and Orion, presumably in the form of Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) architectures. And if Blue Origin wants to provide a complete end-to-end service like SpaceX will be able to, that means coming up with their own LEO taxi. Granted, that wouldn’t be likely to get operational until the early 2030’s.
If so, *that* might be Blue’s real incentive to develop their own crew space vehicle. As a bonus, they can try to ammortize the costs by trying to compete with Dragon on commercial LEO station transport, I suppose. It is the kind of thing I can see Jeff Bezos being excited about doing – and it’s frankly easier and cheaper than building his own space station.
P.S. I appreciate all the upvotes in the Space News comboxes.
Mitch S says: “I can’t think of any industry where one player became so dominant just due to the superior design and execution.”
Ford from 1908 – mid 1920s. Google in the search engine world 2000 – today, Can probably make similar cases for operating systems and office software suites (Microsoft). There are others but you get the idea.
Thing is that all these positions of dominance are fleeting, though they last a decade or two. There’s always something new on the horizon. Depends entirely on how successfully the fledgling monopoly can capture the regulators and use the government to slap down their rivals. Cheers –
The only thing that can possibly compete with Space X and Dragon is a Chinese launch company.
Using slave labor for all the unskilled manufacturing and fixed labor wages
M. Murcek,
Axiom, Starlab and Orbital Reef are getting some NASA money, but all are required to raise appreciably more on their own as a condition of getting any of that NASA money. Vast’s initial Haven-1 station will be smaller than the others, but is also being built entirely on Vast’s own dime. The same is true of Gravitics, a company already bending prototype metal for an initial 8-meter diameter station module that can be launched by Starship.
All of these outfits – and some others too – definitely smell money. The smell may prove illusory, but it’s being pursued just the same.
I think it is apparent to all of these outfits that their business cases must extend well beyond getting NASA to sign leases. NASA intends to be a tenant on at least the stations it is contributing development money to, but it also wants its total LEO station expenditures to diminish from the current annual $3 billion or so being spent on ISS to something closer to half of that – or less. There’s no unlimited pot of NASA gold to be had by commercial LEO stations and their builders know that.
The business cases of these station start-ups envision a combination of NASA, foreign governments and domestic and foreign corporations providing enough demand for LEO services to cover expenses and make a profit. How many of these stations will prove to be winners is anybody’s guess at this point, but the possibility definitely exists that more than one will prove to be such.
Just as an example, Axiom is apparently in serious negotiations with some outfit that wants to build a large, spherical add-on to Axiom Station in which to stage zero-G athletic contests and games with money to be made from pay-per-view sales. This would be analogous to Earthbound casinos hosting boxing, MMA and UFC matches. If the price of getting tourists to LEO falls sufficiently, I can see Axiom and/or some other LEO stations adding actual casino facilities to attract high-roller gamblers with deep pockets.
Milt,
You’re exactly correct. Every new industry, in its early days, goes through what I call an “Era of Wonderful Nonsense.” Steamships, railroads, steelmaking, high-rise buildings, and urban bridge and tunnel infrastructure had such episodes in the 19th century. Autos and aircraft had theirs in the early 20th. Mainframe, mini and personal computing each had such chapters in their successive early histories. So have software, the Internet and wireless telephony. Now, finally, spaceflight is having its own.
Edward,
The absence of Boeing from recent NASA press conferences and press releases about Starliner was due to a decision made by Boeing management to deliberately stay out.
I have no particular insight into what Boeing’s new CEO may decide anent the fate of the company’s space-related divisions. Any of your speculations on this matter could easily prove to be true in the not-too-distant future. Pop some more corn and get a good seat – this show ain’t nowhere close to being over.
You’re certainly correct that manned spaceflight has always been expensive and, in recent decades, that NASA has also not done it well. The manned spaceflight torch is undeniably being passed, incrementally, from NASA to private enterprise – mainly SpaceX. Musk’s tweet about Mars indicates that SpaceX now intends to grab the damned torch away from a rudderless and dithering NASA and run off with it, at least where Mars is concerned. Your reply to Ray Van Dune indicates that you see things the same way.
I must disagree a bit about the comparability of the Challenger and Columbia tragedies to the recent uncrewed Starliner return decision. In the case of both destroyed Shuttles, what killed them were simply modestly worse versions of things which had been observed previously and shrugged off – a consequence of NASA’s having gone over from a basically engineering mindset to an “operator” mindset of defining deviance down. This was Starliner’s third flight and thruster issues had arisen on the first two as well as on the most recent. NASA, mistakenly as it turns out, thought it and its contractor had a good grasp on the reasons for the prior problems. So Starliner was launched with known problems – a page right out of the Challenger and Columbia playbooks. What was different this time was that NASA took the opportunity presented – once problems also recurred – to eliminate the possibility of another potential tragedy by making alternative arrangements that minimized danger to the affected crew. There was certainly some “emotional” – and political – admixture in this decision, but it was mainly an engineering call. As such, it certainly represents progress anent the NASA culture IMHO.
I agree that SpaceX seems likely to do some extended on-orbit Starship missions with large crews as prep for Mars. The first one is likely to be in LEO, but I think subsequent such missions will move to lunar orbit ASAP. I also think such missions will be done with two or more Starships each and will overlap in duration. Commodore Isaacman may well command one or more of these rehearsals before boarding his flagship and departing for Mars in earnest.
Mitch S.,
Agree with your take on the Starliner decision.
Disagree that few saw SpaceX’s coming dominance a decade ago. I certainly did and I was far from alone. It is true that there were also a lot of folks who doubted SpaceX’s ability to pursue multiple projects in parallel. We of greater optimism simply noted that Elon’s simultaneous running of SpaceX and Tesla already made him the Multi-Tasker General of the United States. As the old saying goes, if you want to get something done fast, give it to a busy man.
What I did not foresee a decade ago was the substantial lack of any developing real competition for SpaceX. That is, in part, a testament to how singular Elon really is, but it’s also an indication that at least two potential competitors simply lacked either the guts or the sustained interest to give Elon a run for his money. I refer, of course, to what is now Sierra Space and Blue Origin.
Blue is, by far, the larger disappointment of the two. Bezos seems to be emerging from his years-long bout of inattention to Blue so we’ll have to see how matters progress in the coming decade. But Blue has, at best, a loooong stern chase ahead of it and one that it may well never successfully accomplish given all of its prior time wastage. Right now, I’d have to say that Stoke Space appears to have the best shot at taking on SpaceX with some reasonable probability of long-term success.
Richard M,
I have no consequential disagreement with anything you wrote here. If Blue continues to exert itself in its recent fashion, I think it can be a player – even if it is unlikely to ever displace SpaceX as the player. Stamina is the issue. We shall see if Blue has enough or if, at some point, it will drop to the side once again, gasping for breath.
Happy to have things to up-vote at SpaceNews given that the trolling and idiocy over there are beginning to reach Ars Technica-esque levels. A lot of the old-timers with functional cerebral cortexes seem to have left – in disgust, one supposes – though HugDoug seems to be dipping his toe back in a bit lately.
I don’t comment there anymore for obscure technical reasons. I can up-vote or down-vote, but every comment I try to leave is immediately flagged for attention and is gone the next time I look. This started happening right after my previous computer died and I replaced it. Something about my new machine apparently doesn’t “smell right” to SN’s IT infrastructure/Disqus configuration. Early in my use of my new machine, I got a couple of messages back, when trying to post, that I needed to “authenticate” my system. I have no idea what this means and could find no clue while mucking about at random in what little of Disqus’s user interface is visible to ordinary users. All I managed to do is figure out how to replace my former handle with my actual name. If you have any advice anent “authentication,” please share.
Thus far, the inability to comment has not impelled me to try initiating what would doubtless be a long and frustrating e-mail chase after the shadowy SN sysadmins. Given previous comments I sent them about their configuration of the “Block” function, I suspect they wouldn’t help me anyway.
Hello Dick,
I don’t comment there anymore for obscure technical reasons. I can up-vote or down-vote, but every comment I try to leave is immediately flagged for attention and is gone the next time I look. This started happening right after my previous computer died and I replaced it.
Wow. That’s odd.
Well, the mystery of why you don’t post over there any more is now solved!
But don’t worry: We have Gary Church to keep us company once again. :)
I wonder what kind of sound Starliner’s airbags made deflating….
Mitch S.,
You wrote: “If we go back about ten years ago I expect a lot of us would have been impressed with SpaceX’s progress with Falcon 9, but have figured they are over reaching by trying to compete with Boeing on Commercial Crew, building out a Sat internet service and designing/building a huge Mars rocket. Surely a recipe for disappointment if not bankruptcy.”
If you go back ten years, you will find that several people here on BTB were skeptical that Boeing could compete in a fixed-price contract.
Falcon was already a low price leader for launches, so it was bound to be popular.
In 2016, when Starship (different name, back then) was first announced as a mission to colonize Mars, that seemed incredible. How could a rocket launch at a cost per seat of the price of a house? That was the announcement.
Starlink did not seem such a stretch, because Iridium and Globalstar had already launched constellations, and the cost of a Falcon launch was fairly reasonable.
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Dick Eagleson wrote: “NASA intends to be a tenant on at least the stations it is contributing development money to, but it also wants its total LEO station expenditures to diminish from the current annual $3 billion or so being spent on ISS to something closer to half of that – or less. There’s no unlimited pot of NASA gold to be had by commercial LEO stations and their builders know that.”
The current $3 billion is the entire budget. A great deal of that NASA spending is on training and developing the experiments they want to do. The NASA gold available for commercial space station rental is very limited indeed.
Sierra Space doesn’t have the deep pockets that Blue Origin has, and I have feared that it could easily have gone the way of XCOR.