Boeing considering selling its space division
According a Wall Street Journal exclusive today (behind a paywall), the company is now exploring the possibility of selling off its space division.
The NASA business that Boeing is exploring a sale of includes the troubled Starliner space vehicle and operations that support the International Space Station, but excludes the unit building NASA’s Space Launch System, the newspaper reported.
The U.S. planemaker’s shares rose 0.6% in afternoon trading.
Boeing’s space division includes its Starliner capsule and its work on NASA’s SLS rocket, as well as building many of the modules on ISS and operating it for NASA.
If this is so, it appears the new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has decided that in order to get the company back on track it needs to focus on Boeng’s first and central business, building airplanes. Space is a distraction that is not helping the company bottom line right now in any way. Furthermore, NASA in 2020 told Boeing it would not entertain any new project bids from the company because its past bids were so poorly conceived. That decision remains in effect now, four years later. Since then Boeing has only have gotten a renewal contract to build more SLS rockets, plus a contract to develop a new airplane wing, but little else.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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According a Wall Street Journal exclusive today (behind a paywall), the company is now exploring the possibility of selling off its space division.
The NASA business that Boeing is exploring a sale of includes the troubled Starliner space vehicle and operations that support the International Space Station, but excludes the unit building NASA’s Space Launch System, the newspaper reported.
The U.S. planemaker’s shares rose 0.6% in afternoon trading.
Boeing’s space division includes its Starliner capsule and its work on NASA’s SLS rocket, as well as building many of the modules on ISS and operating it for NASA.
If this is so, it appears the new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has decided that in order to get the company back on track it needs to focus on Boeng’s first and central business, building airplanes. Space is a distraction that is not helping the company bottom line right now in any way. Furthermore, NASA in 2020 told Boeing it would not entertain any new project bids from the company because its past bids were so poorly conceived. That decision remains in effect now, four years later. Since then Boeing has only have gotten a renewal contract to build more SLS rockets, plus a contract to develop a new airplane wing, but little else.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Given that Boeing’s SLS operations will not be on offer, perhaps Boeing is looking to divest itself of those parts of its space operations that it has decided to sell on a piecemeal basis. Doing so would likely increase the number of potential buyers and maximize what Boeing could get, in total, for its divestitures versus just putting everything for sale in one bag and making the sale an all-or-nothing affair. Peddling the Starliner operation as a discrete unit, for example, would make the rest of Boeing’s for-sale space assets more attractive to buyers who have no interest in something that is as much of a fixer-upper as Starliner.
In another comment on another site awhile back I opined that Starliner ought, ideally, to go to a NewSpace company best equipped to fix its myriad shortcomings. Given that Starliner’s number one weakness is thrusters, I figured Impulse Space would be the ideal entity to convert this particular sow’s ear into a silk purse. Run by Tom Mueller, the creator of SpaceX’s Merlin engine, Impulse, best known as a space tug company, also makes thrusters – of which the space station start-up Vast is already buying a large quantity for use on its Haven space stations. Impulse’s business model is heavily based on the provision of in-space services using hardware launched on SpaceX rockets. A rebuilt Starliner would fit very nicely within this paradigm.
Rocket Lab is another potential buyer of some or all of Boeing’s space offerings and has a lot of recent experience in re-purposing acquired space assets.
Blue Origin has formidably deep pockets and has to be considered an obvious potential purchaser of part or all of what Boeing puts on the block.
And, given that it is already rumored to have at least kicked the tires on ULA recently, Sierra Space has to be considered a potential buyer of part or all of Boeing’s would-be space divestitures.
It has been obvious for some time that much, or even all, of Boeing would be better off under new owners/management. It seems that at least parts of Boeing may soon be exactly that. This is definitely something that bears watching closely.
Boeing’s business model has been to lock in Government contracts.
Now so many things are going wrong they just can not guarantee getting any new contracts.
And well since they have no way to compete with Space X on rocket launches……………
This sounds like good news. Boeing is certainly deserving of criticism these days, but if these means that real changes are afoot, and that the company will return its focus to where it belongs, the country will be better off for it.
Boeing was once a world-leading company for which Americans could take pride. I hope it will one day return to such a state.