this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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149
Boeing Starliner officials may know ‘root cause’ of issues with astronaut flight (www.cnn.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

tl;dr

Heat building up inside the thrusters may be causing Teflon seals to bulge, restricting the flow of propellant.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Meanwhile at the ISS...it's getting down to the wire guys, how do we get back home? Let's Lemmy the solution!

  1. roasted
  2. in small tiny pieces
  3. check the helium seals then walk the elephant into the craft and close the door
  4. you can't! There's a giraffe inside!
  5. eat the CEOs
  6. we shouldn't have flown here in the first place
  7. it's going to work, but first hand me that electric toothbrush, and the extra wire from the solar panels. Anything with microchips in it. Did anyone pack the paperclip 📎? We need a paper clip!
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

You mean aside from being built by Boeing?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Does it rhyme with "missing bolts"?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Problem was Boeing was involved in its creation, clearly. Maybe if companies invested in retaining talent and not lining shareholder and ceo pockets they’d be able to create viable products.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you remember the Boeing CEO boasting about how the dragon was never going to get to the ISS first? Starliner had a head start in development, and they thought they were nearly ready. So he makes a post on Twitter saying they'd get there first. Musk replies "great, do it".

I miss the terse and sane Elon Musk. Somehow this crazy Musk is less fun.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Only Musk I miss is the one from the future who is dead. He has contributed nothing to society other than stealing wealth from the masses.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, that's absolutely not true. The world got electric cars much sooner than we would have otherwise and I'm sure that has made a meaningful difference for global CO2 emissions. And along with a lot of talented engineers, he's absolutely revolutionized the rocket industry, doing what everyone thought was literally impossible by landing rockets and reusing them. If he can follow up the falcon 9 success with a starship that works and actually is 100% usable, that could well be the most influential innovation in human history, (no exaggeration).

He's still a dick, an addict, and a thoroughly problematic human being. But he's done some truly great things for the world, more than I have certainly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

he didn’t do any of that, he just bought some companies that were already doing that. Surprised you didnt add “he revolutionized short form social media by creating twitter” to the list of things he has absolutely not contributed anything toward other than constantly sabotaging the companies he owns becuase he’s a miscreant freak.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He was the lead engineer during the beginning of spaceX, he was actively involved in that. Also, he put his personal wealth into funding those last falcon 1 launch attempts, the company was completely out of money. If he hadn't been there, the company never could have made orbit, they would have gone bust.

As for Tesla, nobody can say what would have happened if musk had never become involved with the company. Neither of us can see those alternate timelines. But what I can say is that Tesla was the first new car company in the US (electric or otherwise) in over 50 years. That is to say, people have tried and failed, and this company was the first to succeed in a long time. So it certainly wasn't a guarantee that anyone was going to push the big auto manufacturers to compete in the electric car market. And whatever it was that made it happen this time, it was Musk at the helm.

Obviously, Twitter was garbage before he bought it. Yes, it's much worse now, but it was never good. I'm really not sure the world has lost anything. Besides, the whole Twitter thing was really after he started to go nuts, that's the crazy Musk that I've had enough of.

And again, I don't disagree that the man is a huge problem today I said that right at the start. But to say he's never done anything of value, well that's ignoring reality, which is Trump level crazy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

You honestly think he designed rockets?

Any tech that was brought to market by Tesla or SpaceX would’ve happened regardless of Musk. He just took credit for it and people like you spread propaganda that he actually contributed work toward it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Like I said, living outside of reality is Trump level crazy. Or plain ignorance. I wouldn't blame you for not knowing the whole story.

And no, nobody was landing rockets, that would not have just "happened".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Ding ding ding! When the investment is not in the best and brightest, and instead every corner is cut and every CEO validated with wealth, they get bottom barrel scraping and keep spiraling down. I knew as soon as I saw the company that it would be something incredibly stupid.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Not enough gay furry engineers to notice the bulge early enough.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago

They forgot to check how tolerant the hypergolic thrusters were to heat…? The primary waste byproduct of chemical thrusters?

Jesus fuck. That is pants-on-head stupid. Boeing’s processes have clearly gone to seed. That is absolutely insane, and in this context, kind of indefensible.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Clown management?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

🤡

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They cut corners?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

They cut the seals to make them fit around corners.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Heat? In my thrusters??

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Who could have known that heat makes things expand?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

It's more likely than you think.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

RIP Boeing Starliner Officials

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Thank you for the TLDR. Was there no time on the schedule, in the many, many, ~~~~~~many~~ years of lead up and cashing NASA checks, when Boeing could have stress tested those seals to failure?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Depends on a lot of things. Most orgs will use published data for what they're choosing to use. More or less standard hardware is less likely to be sent to MR&D for testing

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Boeing:

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Are they still up there? I'd kind of forgotten about them.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

48 days and counting, three days longer than Starliner’s initial 45 day limit set by NASA and 40 days longer than the initially planned mission return.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So what's the current plan?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Good question.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

The current plan is the same as the old plan, for Butch and Suni to ride Starliner back home for a safe landing in the desert. The 45 day limit was initially set due to lack of knowledge on how Starliner’s batteries would perform in space, due to their extended stay they have had ample time to test the batteries and they are currently testing and acting nominally thus allowing for the extended stay. Their stay has been extended for NASA and Boeing to do as much testing as possible on the trunk of Starliner, the part of Starliner that had all of the issues. The reason for the stay is that once Butch and Suni depart from the ISS in Starliner and head for home the trunk will separate from Starliner and burn up (hopefully) on reentry thus making any testing on the main culprit of all issues that Starliner had impossible. This is getting to a diatribe so I will end it here. If you have more questions just ask.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks for the abstract. Is Boeing paying for the extra docking hours at the ISS? Isn't the docking schedule pretty important to ISS operations? I figured it's like a train station: precision and efficiency above all, otherwise arrivals stack up and cause cascade failures?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Did they forget to bolt the door plug on?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Hey, I'm paid to update quality assurance TPM reports. I'm not paid to wiggle metal bits. I don't tighten things." -me, if I lived in a hell dimension, i.e., in an office for Boeing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tbf, those people aren't generally responsible for the failures of the people that both install things or verify installed things.

And the bolts in that scenario don't actually need to be tight.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My comment was intended to be facetious. The MAX's door plug bolts were not supposed to be tight when the door unplugged/undoored/peaced out in flight?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah, np.

No, they don't have to be tight ever. They're locked in by geometry and wire.