this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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A scathing report on how badly NASA and Boeing fucked up on the Starliner crew vehicle intended to ferry crew to and from the International Space Station.

The latest eight day Starliner flight, with two astronauts aboard, turned into a nine month stay on the ISS because Starliner had so many problems on the docking approach that NASA didn't trust it to return the astronauts safely to Earth. Eventually it was detached uncrewed safely and was landed under automated control. A Crew Dragon had to be sent up with two fewer astronauts than planned so that the stranded test flight astronauts could get a seat back to Earth.

There's good news though. Both Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon are fixed-price contracts with payments on certain milestones. These aren't the old-fashioned "cost-plus" contracts where the contractor could just bill for every expense with a fat margin on top. Boeing has actually lost money on Starliner already, and they have to eat that loss, they can't bill NASA for it. Boeing actually got the larger contract, because their pet senators argued that Boeing was the more experienced and reliable contractor.

To put things in perspective, Starliner's lifespan from the awarding of the contract to the present day is longer than the time between the first artificial satellite and the first crewed moon landing.

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[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 3 points 15 hours ago

The Falcon and Dragon are legitimately good systems.

But also,

When you're in a scamming the government competition but your opponents are Boeing and ULA.