9mo ago

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft detects leaks on journey to ISS

After years of delays and two failed launches, Starliner lifted off from Florida on Wednesday; despite helium leaks, craft seems stable otherwise

31 comments

They said after the first leak that it wasn't an issue since they calculated that it would take 4 leaks of that size to disable the thruster system. Now they have 3.
- I hope we didn't assume the odds of each leak was an independent event. Same failure mode and maybe we have uncovered something systemic! Kind of scary
  
  Since the cause of the first leak was a defective rubber seal, it would have made sense to replace all of them. I'm pretty sure they didn't use different types of seals on each thruster port. But for that, they would have had to disassemble the spacecraft and that would have taken too long for the available launch windows.
- And the titanic was unsinkable

Only a matter of time for another Challenger incident to set space exploration back another 20 years.
I think most in society get that human space exploration is extremely risky, but to flirt with that risk with a known variable tipping the scales the wrong way seems like a business decision rather than an engineering one.
- Imagine those morons end up destroying the ISS. Boeing has really gone down the shitter. I don't even know why they launched this scrap heap in the first place. Shortcuts like this are completely unacceptable in regards to space travel.

At some point, really hoping the US government just disqualifies Boeing as a potential supplier. I was ready to celebrate that Boeing finally managed to not fuck something up, but alas, my hopes were somehow too high. Good luck to the astronauts on re-entry.

Particularly embarrassing considering the incredible progress SpaceX is making, including today’s launch and successful splashdown of both starship and the booster. The entry was wild, too - one of the fins burned halfway off, but the damn thing still worked fine lol
- Maybe they'll put a Starliner in the cargo bay of the next Starship launch.
  
  Lmao that would be goddamn priceless. Even if it was just an external mockup with ballast to simulate full mission mass of the capsule… Jesus, that would be an absolutely hilarious amount of shade for them to throw.