That is a nice analogy, but the satellite industry has always been limited by the size of the available fairings, the weight that the available launch vehicles could lift, and the orbits that the available launch vehicles could reach. The maximum launch cadences of the available launch vehicles have also limited the number of satellites that could be launched. Until about a decade and a half ago, governments were the main customer, so new launch vehicles were designed to their changing needs. In the U.S., payloads became larger, so the smaller launch vehicles were phased out. That is what happened to the Scout.

The third millennium began with a dearth of satellite launches, largely due to reduced interest or ability of governments to use or explore space. Who could blame governments for losing interest? None of them were putting space to much productive use, outside of military advantage.

SpaceX and the Falcon 9 disrupted everything. It brought the cost of access to space down to the point where many more industries could use space for production. Before this price drop, commercial space had been limited to communications, and more recently (since 1999) Earth observation became commercial. With the price drop, a wide variety of payloads are going to space, including (finally!) free fall manufacturing.

To compete with SpaceX’s Falcons, many nations and commercial launch companies have designed a new set of less expensive launch vehicles with a new set of capabilities and fairing sizes, attempting to satisfy the expected desires of the growing commercial satellite business. Customers will have a wider variety of container size than just the ones that SpaceX offers.

The lessons include:
— Increased launch cadence translates into increased business. More satellites currently need to be launched than the availability of the world’s launch vehicle. SpaceX launches so many payloads because it has the booster fleet to do so.
— Orbits matter, even for smallsats. Piggyback launches were once a result of desperation to get into any orbit, but now smallsats are getting into desired orbits.
— Size matters. The increased interest in space stations means larger and heavier payloads. The increased interest in smallsats means smaller launch vehicles can be big business.
— Commercial manned space will soon be a large market. Dragon alone will not be able to handle the traffic to three space stations, so if we don’t get more maned spacecraft soon, the proposed space stations may be underutilized.
— The Moon and Mars are desirable destinations in addition to multiple low Earth orbit space stations.

The 20 foot and 40 foot container analogy is a good one, but neither size needs to be filled completely, as New Glenn’s first two launches demonstrated.

I never liked the idea of things going to the lowest bidder anyway–it makes me suspicious.””””””

So if I ever bid work for you I should jack in a much higher number so you will like it? I think you mix the lowest bidder with lowest qualified bidder. Qualified is not only the technical ability to get it done, but also the history of doing so.

Higher price is clearly not an indication of quality any more than a low price.

And just like with the cargo shipping industry they eventually settled on the 20 foot cargo container and the 40 foot cargo container, Space X has set the diameter limits and the Falcon 9 has set the a weight limit. Essentially the 20 foot cargo container,
Superheavy will set the larger 40 foot cargo container limit. with its new diameter and weight limit.

All customers who want cheap shipping will work to those limits.

The SLS is a strange sized truck looking for a cargo.
Boeing is still thinking rocketry is essentially an experimental truck building industry.

BTW, one of Boeing’s biggest fixed price contracts is for a new Air Force One and Boeing is getting crushed with it.

It just seems firm contracts are living documents, not just with Boeing. Dream catcher another example recently posted here.

https://issnationallab.org/partner/boeing/

(I believe this nets them $225 million per year.)

So, as long as ISS is in operation, they’re still a vendor for NASA, even if you cancel the Starliner contract today.

That said, Boeing certainly has failed miserably to land new major NASA contracts for the last several years, including, as you say, its apparently awful HLS proposal.

I never liked the idea of things going to the lowest bidder anyway–it makes me suspicious.

I wish people who know nothing about government contracting would stop pretending that they do. Boeing does *more* fixed-price contracts than all of the other big primes combined. In fact, *most* of their big contracts are firm, fixed price: F-15 Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet, C-17 Globemaster, A-10 Warthog, AH-64 Apache, T-7 Red Tail, Harpoon, SLAM ER, JDAM, SDB, KC-46 Pegasus, Starliner, and (I believe) WGS.

People actually in the know can tell who the Air Force intends to award the contract to by the terms of the RFP. When the Tanker program switched from cost-plus to firm, fixed-price was when the Air Force decided to switch the contract from Northrop to Boeing. When the B-21 Bomber contract was switched from firm, fixed-price to cost-plus was when the Air Force decided to switch from Boeing (who had been in the lead until that point) to Northrop. Both of those changes happened because Northrop won’t do major firm, fixed-price contracts but Boeing will.

It’s been like this for decades. There’s no reason to keep repeating falsehoods.

No Mas.

Imagine being able to just sit back and leisurely exceed original contract estimates with no consequences. $$$$ keep flowing in. Hit another snag, delay? No Worries! Uncle Sam’s wallet has your back.

When other people’s money stopped flowing so freely, Boeing could not adapt.

Richard M: Except for Boeing’s outstanding contracts (relating to Starliner and SLS), Boeing is no longer a NASA vendor, and hasn’t been for more than five years. The agency made it very clear in the bidding for the manned lunar lander that Boeing’s bid was so bad it would not entertain future bids from the company.

Different Boeings. NGAD is Boeing St. Louis. Starliner is Boeing Huntsville. If Starliner were Boeing St. Louis, it probably wouldn’t be having anywhere near the problems it is.

Neither of those seem very likely to me. I think it is going to be a hard push for Boeing to get even three crew flights, the way things are going.

Actually it indicates a lack of time. Starliner is so late that it doesn’t have time to fly six more missions before ISS is abandoned. Those missions, like DreamChaser’s six cargo missions, will be available as options should ISS be extended. If NASA lacked confidence it wouldn’t be launching crew at all (hence the unmanned Starliner 1), not launching three crews and stopping.

I’ve been predicting this for quite a few months now (except I predicted May, not April).

Of course, it is not impossible that even if they *do* have good legal grounds, they might choose not to challenge it, out of a desire to not antagonize NASA over what is going to be a very small amount of (low value) cargo anyway.

Then Boeing could change its name to “Boeing Buggy-whips”!

It has been rumored for months that NASA would require Boeing to fly another unmanned mission before certifying Starliner for manned flights. The question that this press release does not answer is whether NASA is paying for this unmanned flight.

A good question, Bob. I wish NASA had spelled this out.

I tend to assume that they *are* paying for it, since it is a modification of the CCtCap contract rather than a fresh one — my suspicion is that NASA is paying for it as if it is one of the crewed flights. If that is true, that makes it one heck of an expensive cargo mission, given the severe limits Starliner will have in terms of mass and volume for payload in that crew compartment…

Either way, Eric Berger is on point in his observation about why critical it is for Boeing that this mission succeed:

“There should be no equivocating on this one. Starliner is drinking in the last chance saloon. Any serious issues with this flight will doom the program as time will run out to get Starliner flying for any operational ISS missions.”

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1993034688060178519

As far as *NASA* is concerned, of course, they really do not need Starliner any longer for crew transport — Dragon has thoroughly proven itself in this role, and it is clearly capable of flying all the missions NASA needs, on the schedule it requires. I think this attempt to salvage the contract like is about other objectives: 1) keeping Boeing alive as a NASA vendor, 2) keeping alive the possibility of a second crew vehicle for the time when commercial space stations start coming online; 3) salvaging the perception of a better program outcome for the Commercial Crew program; and 4) keeping certain constitiuencies on Capitol Hill mollified.