A review of Boeing’s struggling space effort
Link here. [now fixed] The article, entitled “As Boeing Struggles To Fix Its Airliner Business, Elon Musk Is Eating Its Lunch In Space,” is a remarkably accurate overview of Boeing’s space effort, considering it comes from a mainstream press outlet. This paragraph will give you its flavor:
New competition could also threaten Boeing’s lucrative Space Launch System. Nicknamed the “Senate Launch System” for its origins in 2010 as a pork-barrel program to preserve jobs with the Space Shuttle winding down, NASA procured the rocket with “cost-plus” contracts – totaling $13.8 billion for Boeing so far – which means the contractor is guaranteed its expenses will be covered, plus a profit. Critics say that’s encouraged cost overruns. NASA’s inspector general has pegged the cost of a single Artemis launch at $4.1 billion, which he characterized last year as “unsustainable,” with total spending on the program projected to top $90 billion by 2025. For reference, NASA’s budget this year is $25 billion.
“This is a sucking chest wound on NASA and their ability to actually advance planetary science and lunar programs,” said Chris Quilty, founder of the space -focused financial services firm Quilty Analytics.
That $13.8 billion figure is accurate as to what NASA has paid Boeing, though it underestimates the actual cost of SLS, which is more than twice that.
Read it all. It suggests Boeing faces very tough times ahead in space.
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 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
Link here. [now fixed] The article, entitled “As Boeing Struggles To Fix Its Airliner Business, Elon Musk Is Eating Its Lunch In Space,” is a remarkably accurate overview of Boeing’s space effort, considering it comes from a mainstream press outlet. This paragraph will give you its flavor:
New competition could also threaten Boeing’s lucrative Space Launch System. Nicknamed the “Senate Launch System” for its origins in 2010 as a pork-barrel program to preserve jobs with the Space Shuttle winding down, NASA procured the rocket with “cost-plus” contracts – totaling $13.8 billion for Boeing so far – which means the contractor is guaranteed its expenses will be covered, plus a profit. Critics say that’s encouraged cost overruns. NASA’s inspector general has pegged the cost of a single Artemis launch at $4.1 billion, which he characterized last year as “unsustainable,” with total spending on the program projected to top $90 billion by 2025. For reference, NASA’s budget this year is $25 billion.
“This is a sucking chest wound on NASA and their ability to actually advance planetary science and lunar programs,” said Chris Quilty, founder of the space -focused financial services firm Quilty Analytics.
That $13.8 billion figure is accurate as to what NASA has paid Boeing, though it underestimates the actual cost of SLS, which is more than twice that.
Read it all. It suggests Boeing faces very tough times ahead in space.
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 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
Link doesn’t work.
Dick Eagleson: Link fixed. Thank you.
“I think it has some legs,” Chilton says. “If in ten years or 20 years they are so good that there’s no need for an SLS, you know, maybe for us business-wise that’s bad, but maybe that’s good for the world.”
The instant Starship becomes operational, the need for SLS goes away. It cannot compete with anything that can be produced and launched for a fraction of its cost, at a much higher rate, and has significantly higher performance. This is typical Boeing slow-think.
Last time I checked, Boeing is in 31 states. That gives them 62 senators & a boatload of representatives! They know how to work the government to get the most money out. Too bad they forgot how to make cutting-edge equipment that works properly!
The need for SLS went away years ago with Falcon Heavy.
The SLS was never supposed to be about cutting edge science. It was supposed to re-use as much of the old shuttle systems as possible. The fuel tanks, engines, life support systems, everything possible.
Boeing turned around and got the government to sign off on as much new and cutting edge tech as possible.
By doing that they lost the whole reason for its original purpose.
And billions of dollars later we have nothing yet.
“I think it has some legs,” Chilton says. “If in ten years or 20 years they are so good that there’s no need for an SLS, you know, maybe for us business-wise that’s bad, but maybe that’s good for the world.”
Starship development is taking longer than Elon hoped, but it ain’t gonna take 10 or 20 years for that point to arrive, Jim. (But I appreciate the hint from a Boeing chieftain that this is at least a genuine *possibility* now.)
Thanks for catching this article, Bob. I’d have missed it otherwise.
John Hare:
The need for SLS went away years ago with Falcon Heavy.
Really, the need for it never existed in the first place.
But it will become *stupidly* obvious the moment Starship can show it can fly to the Moon. At that point, SpaceX will have demonstrated that it can do absolutely everything that SLS/Orion can do, more effectively, safely, reliably, and cheaply. Launch a crew on a Dragon. Transfer to a fueled Starship in LEO. Go to Moon. Reverse order to bring ’em back.
(In the long run, you can dispense with the Dragon, but let us grant that it will be a while before SpaceX has flown Starship enough times that NASA will feel politically able to put its people on it for the entire mission profile.)
Elon Musk has long since polished off Boeing’s breakfast and lunch. He is now well into the consumption of Boeing’s multi-course dinner. The only break Musk has given Boeing is his – thus far, at least – disinclination to pursue either the civil aircraft or weapons markets. And SpaceX has been growing and strengthening its ties to the DoD for several years. Weaponry may well not remain off the table at SpaceX much longer.
Sometimes, entire corporations come to resemble characters from classic movies and literature. Boeing has come to resemble two notorious madwomen from such sources. First, is Norma (“I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille.”) Desmond, the delusional has-been movie queen recluse of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. Second, is Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. A would-be bride, unhinged after being jilted at the altar, she wanders her cobwebbed and decaying mansion, still wearing her yellowed and tattered wedding dress decades later.
Chilton’s pathetic conceit that SLS may still have one or two good decades left in it is only modestly less embarrassing than former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s erstwhile habit of giving speeches at industry conferences in which he insisted Boeing and SLS would beat SpaceX to Mars. Muilenburg was finally put out of Boeing’s misery after the serial 737 Max disasters. Chilton, though, is to be kept around as an “advisor” after a number of years of only moderately less disastrous mismanagement of his part of Boeing. The company would, frankly, be best advised to lock the man in an attic and send some luckless short-straw intern up from time to time to pretend to seek his “advice.”
Ray Van Dune and Richard M have got things exactly right.
Richard M noted: “Really, the need for it [SLS] never existed in the first place.”
Correct. What we really needed was a replacement for the Space Shuttle, except it would be prudent to separate the cargo transport version from the crew version, as was done with the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) and the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The high cost and low launch cadence came directly because of the large flexible structure, but maintenance costs on the engines didn’t help. Notice that CRS and CCP both use smaller vehicles, and except for the Northrup Grumman (Orbital Sciences) Cygnus craft, they are reusable, including the upcoming Dream Chaser.
Through reusability, the Space Shuttle was supposed to bring down the cost of getting to space and increase the frequency of access to space. It failed in these goals, so NASA should have improved upon the hardware in order to fulfill the goal. Unfortunately, Congress and the President intervened and directed NASA to regress to 1960s era expendable methods. This is why the cost per launch is so high and the launch cadence so very low. Apollo was cancelled as being too expensive, so why would Congress choose to fund a similarly expensive program? Because they have become very unwise fiscally. They seem to think that money grows on the printing press, without consequence.
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Dick Eagleson‘s imagery is potent. Boeing’s space group is still living in the past, when the cost-plus contract was king and accomplishing the project on time and on budget only got the company and the employees unemployed. It hurt more to do it right the first time, and delays became such a habit that Boeing still struggled through the second try on Starliner. SLS did its job on the first try, but it took twice as long to do it. Thus, it looks like SLS is finally ready for its close-up, assuming Mr. DeMille wants it.
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From the Forbes article:
If Boeing and SpaceX bid this right, they both put in some padding on their bids in order to cover these kinds of development problems. Not only could the designs need improvement before they became operational (even SpaceX had to make unexpected changes, especially after one Dragon exploded during a ground test) but Congress did not fund NASA’s commercial projects at a level to keep them on schedule, adding cost to the companies working these fixed-price contracts. Even though they may not be losing money on this contract, Boeing’s problems were so costly that it had to inform its shareholders that Starliner would not make nearly as much profit as expected, reported as “losses.”
I hope that Boeing does better with Orbital Reef than it did with Starliner.
Edward wrote, “I hope that Boeing does better with Orbital Reef than it did with Starliner.”
Note that Blue Origin is leading Orbital Reef. I would not be hopeful, based on Blue Origin’s track record of accomplishment. In fact, it appears Boeing and Blue Origin make a great match: Both of their space projects have been consistently late and over-budget, with technical issues.
I like SLS for a wet workshop.
Jeff Wright
January 19, 2023 at 1:18 am
I like SLS for a wet workshop.
That’s what it’s doing now. Quite wet on the bottom of the ocean.
What an opportunity for Boeing to radically remake its business model. Sadly I don’t see that happening. They are too woke to have the skills or desire. They’d rather just die thinking they were right.
I hope I’m wrong.
James Street:
You’re probably not wrong..
Good riddance to the wokesters , no matter how big they are, or how great they were in the past.
Get woke, go broke.