Starliner launch set for Friday, December 20
Capitalism in space: The first orbital flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, remains on target for launch this coming Friday, December 20, 2019.
The launch is presently set for 6:36 am (Eastern), with a docking at ISS early the next day.
NASA will be broadcasting the launch and docking.
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Capitalism in space: The first orbital flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, remains on target for launch this coming Friday, December 20, 2019.
The launch is presently set for 6:36 am (Eastern), with a docking at ISS early the next day.
NASA will be broadcasting the launch and docking.
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.
Since this is joyously a competition between two commercial companies, it is worth noting that SpaceX did their first flight of Crew Dragon to the ISS March 2019, almost 10 months ago.
Context is helpful.
If this Russian-Powered Atlas 5 screws the pooch, well then, back to the drawing board for a couple of years of review, until the NASA paper reports generated equals the weight of the Starliner.
Meanwhile, SpaceX could totally resupply our ISS without any Soyuz help, and is long overdue to fly crews to the outpost.
Boeing has enough on its plate with the 737.
Also, why are they going to launch with the capsule abort system inert?
When/if the Atlas CATO’s (catastrophic take-off), what better endorsement for the Starliner than a successful escape?
Can the Starliner also fit on a Falcon 9?
With the Atlas 5, it appears they can make it fit on anything. (what an ugly rocket!) ;-)
Captain Emeritus, Atlas 5 has a better reliability record than Falcon 9. Just saying.
Yes, it is ugly.
I’d fly on a Falcon 9 any day in preference to an Atlas 5. Who needs large firecrackers attached to the first stage?
Mike Boggett, Why the preference ? Just saying you’ll take one over the other is not informative.
You can’t turn the solids off. Just like the Shuttle. Bad idea for piloted rockets. And my name is Borgelt.
OK, Diane, you got me.
Latest data I can find shows 80 Atlas 5 launches
With 79 successes for a 98.75% rate.
Also, 80 Falcon 9 launches with 78 successful
flights equals a 98.5% rate.
UAL has to buy it’s success from the Ruskies
and charges anywhere from $120-150million per expendable flight. (Depending on configuration)
Falcon 9 has LANDED 47 of its boosters so far.
(and all American made)
I can get you a good deal on a slightly scorched, flight proven Falcon 9 for roughly $50 million for your next project.
A far better use of American taxpayer dollars.
I will not do any business with communists or socialists.
Let them thrive in their own repressive regimes.
Col Beausabre,
I think Mr. Borgelt would agree that our loss of the Challenger and 7 national treasures in 1986
is reason enough, to never again to risk American lives on solid rocket boosters.
Exactly.