The facts
On Monday, September 28, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced a new road map for Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule: an uncrewed Starliner-1 mission to the International Space Station no earlier than December, as an engineering evaluation flight, followed by a crewed Starliner-2 mission commanded by astronaut Woody Hoburg no earlier than 2028.
Starliner's June 2024 crew flight test carried astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore for what was supposed to be a weeklong stay. Instead, helium leaks and thruster outages made NASA decide the capsule was not safe enough to bring them home. Williams and Wilmore became part of the space station crew rotation and eventually returned on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, spending more than nine months in orbit. NASA has classified the botched flight a "Type A mishap," its most severe category, the same designation given to the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
Hoburg said Monday the root cause was "inadequate systems engineering and integration, creating gaps in hardware qualification," adding that in the case of the helium leaks and crew module thruster failures, the damage was done on the ground before launch: the unqualified environment was actually on the ground, and the problems should have been caught and prevented before the vehicle got to the launchpad.
NASA expects to pay an additional $359 million for Starliner's upgrades and to certify United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rockets for crewed missions, since the Atlas rockets that carried Starliner are retiring. Boeing has been paid $4.82 billion for a mandatory order of four flights, not including the new money, while SpaceX has been awarded $5.92 billion for a demo mission and 17 operational flights.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was blunt at the All-In Summit earlier this month: "Boeing has been paid, I think probably more than we have been paid, to develop their human capsule." Of NASA's continued support for Starliner, she said: "We're just going to let them have some business."
Our take
Boeing's Starliner got beaten by fucking rust that ate the hardware while it sat on the ground in Florida like a neglected piece of shit. Not space, not reentry, just basic corrosion the dickheads never qualified before launch because their systems engineering was a goddamn joke.
NASA already paid these pricks $4.82 billion for four flights and now they want another $359 million to fix the same ground fuckups that turned a weeklong trip into nine months stranded for Williams and Wilmore. The capsule earned a Type A mishap, the same shit as Challenger and Columbia, because Boeing couldn't catch helium leaks and thruster failures that happened before the thing even left the pad.
So the new plan is an empty Starliner-1 in December as an engineering test and then Woody Hoburg commanding Starliner-2 no earlier than 2028. Nothing says we trust this turd like sending it up without humans first while they certify a whole new rocket since the old one retired waiting for Boeing to stop sucking.
Hoburg spelled it out: the unqualified environment was on the ground and the problems should have been caught before launch. Translation, these assholes built a spaceship that was broken from day one and still collected billions.
Gwynne Shotwell said it cleanest when she noted Boeing got paid more than SpaceX for their human capsule and then added that NASA is just going to let them have some business. SpaceX is treating Boeing like the pity fuck of the space program while the rest of us watch the same contractor that stranded astronauts get rewarded with fresh cash to maybe not do it again.
