Boeing, Boeing, burned: Over half a billion dollars by Starliner in 2024

HELLFIRE

Snark in title courtesy of and credit to TheRegister : https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/05/starliner_boeing_losses/

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner project has added a reach-forward loss of $523 million for the aviation giant, taking total losses for the program beyond the $2 billion mark. …

If that’s a “reach forward” loss, I’d hate to see what a “reach around” loss is… /snark

Regards

GrumpyCanadian

HELLFIRE With Boeing managing to botch every single thing lately, it is no surprise that they were terrified of the Bombardier CSeries, to the point that they resorted to underhanded tactics. They know how to lobby governments, falsify compliance testing, get lucrative government contracts and squeeze every bit of profit out of their operations... everything but actually engineer and build the products they want to sell.

px_eliezer_

GrumpyCanadian They know how to lobby governments, falsify compliance testing, get lucrative government contracts and squeeze every bit of profit out of their operations... everything but actually engineer and build the products they want to sell.

Hate to say this but I think that Elon is better at BOTH the lobbying AND the engineering.

InternetJeff

Starliner MAX™ sure has built a name for itself.

InternetJeff

px_eliezer_ Hate to say this but I think that Elon is better at BOTH the lobbying AND the engineering.

And hopefully, rescuing stranded astronauts. Boeing should be required to reimburse all the costs of getting them back.

GrumpyCanadian

px_eliezer_ He may be the one with the money, but arguably, it is the people who work for his companies who are doing the actual engineering. Most of the good ideas and successes at these companies have not been his own. In fact, it can be shown that, in a few of his "do it my way or you're fired" cases, the results have been less than spectacular.

GrumpyCanadian

px_eliezer_ While we're on the subject of that guy, I found this article "fascinating", as Spock would say. If we can agree to read it and not discuss it here, maybe I won't be black-listed for sharing it.

WalterDnes

I question the point of doubling down with Boeing's Starliner. The original plan was to alternate SpaceX and Boeing crewed launches to ISS. This would mean one launch per year for each of them. SpaceX Crew-10 is confirmed for late March or early April. If Boeing lobbies long and hard, and NASA ignores a lot of red flags, the best that Boeing could hope for is 5 ISS flights: in the autumn of 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029. ISS is due to be evacuated in late 2030, so no flight in autumn 2030.

SpaceX has 15 successful crewed flights so far

DM2 (2 -person NASA-paid demo mission to ISS)
9 NASA-paid missions to ISS (Crew-1 through Crew-9)
3 Axiom private missions
Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn

Boeing, meanwhile, has had one problem-ridden 2-person demo mission to ISS. It's too bad about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because Soyuz is a reliable workhorse with an amazing track record.

InternetJeff

WalterDnes

✅ Concur with all your points.

HooRU

And that would mean no US space program?

MacLeech

HooRU There are still SLS, ULA, Rocket Lab, and Blue Origin among others.

The US Space program is bigger than the ISS, SpaceX, and Boeing.

InternetJeff

HooRU And that would mean no US space program?

What would mean no US space program?

px_eliezer_

HooRU And that would mean no US space program?

NO.

It doesn't (all) have to be a government-run program.

Besides private companies have ALWAYS been involved with NASA from the beginning.

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (later known as McDonnell Douglas) was the prime contractor for the Mercury program for example.

North American Rockwell and many other companies are other examples.

I am NOT a "Muskrat" but it is coming true that in many ways folks such as Musk and Bezos can do it better and cheaper.

Robert Heinlein's Dream of Private Space Travel Is Coming True
https://reason.com/2022/11/15/we-are-living-robert-heinleins-dream/

HooRU

MacLeech Yes, like I or anyone in science don't know that? You keep replying to my posts with this kind of obvious omission that someone like me knows better.

HooRU

px_eliezer_ Look, I'm all for SOME CERTAIN privatization of science.

Bu-ut, I worked at the labs and I believe from EXPERIENCE that private industry needs to complement, NOT replace, our efforts in science and technology.

What if we had hired private corporations during the Manhattan Experiment? You know obviously what it could have meant, yes?

Few here have a good idea of what our labs perform, including NASA. You simply cannot privatize science completely or even too significantly, doing so is VERY dangerous in many ways that should be obvious, such as conflicts of interest and inflitration of enemies of the country and multinational interests.

MacLeech

HooRU Private corporations were hired during the Manhattan Project, such as Stone & Webster, Kellogg, and Union Carbide. The government rarely has the resources and manpower to accomplish large projects without private industry being a major contributor.

If you know better, stop making pronouncements such as “the end of the US Space Program” if Boeing or SpaceX isn’t involved or if Soyuz is.

Hydraglass

HooRU There's a LOT of benefit for doing science that fails - in reality MOST science should fail - that's how the system of Question/Research/Hypothesis/Experiment/Data/Conclusion is supposed to work - not every hypothesis is supposed to be right or accurate, but every one of them is supposed to provide data and build the corpus of knowledge. For profit business is by nature antithetical to this - failed experiments that provide data are generally of no use in for profit business - they need to start with the data previously collected and try to hit the ball out of the park on their first try - otherwise it's "corporate waste" and they get hammered by their investors and stock holders for wasting money.

Government funded (and university/public educational institution funded) scientific research on the other hand doesn't NEED a win every time - it just needs to be useful and collect more data that becomes part of the body of human knowledge - making the next swing at the ball that much better, with that much more data behind the research. Getting it wrong isn't a bad thing, it just proves that a certain set of data and information aren't the basis for a good theory.

Without public funded research, we stop progressing. Business and industry will only go for the safe bets and aren't going to waste years and billions on scientific research for the good of humanity - they will strictly do what makes money.

InternetJeff

HooRU What if we had hired private corporations during the Manhattan Experiment? You know obviously what it could have meant, yes?

No.

This is a terrible analogy. Being a military history buff, I can tell you that private companies were instrumental and key to the Manhattan Project in virtually every way. As mentioned, the effort heavily relied on companies like Stone & Webster, Tennessee Eastman, DuPont (plutonium production complex), H. K. Ferguson, Union Carbide, and others. The economic engine of free private enterprise fueled the effort. We obviously know what it actually meant.

InternetJeff

HooRU You simply cannot privatize science completely or even too significantly...

This ignores historical precedent.

Early commercial aviation was not mature and heavily subsidized by government. It relied upon airmail contracts and other government support. But once an industry becomes mature, it can sustain itself and be privatized. I don't think anyone today would want the government operating air travel. And so It goes with space travel. Space travel is becoming a commodity. If NASA wants to go to the Moon or Mars they are going to hire a company to bring them there. Or just hire the company to do or get whatever it is that they want done or got. Commercial customers will follow, and NASA will just be another customer.

Need a moon based telescope on the far side of the moon? Simply hire a company to deliver and deploy it, and sell you the data. Why own the cow when you can just buy the milk? And besides NASA, every other university, research outfit, and company can buy the milk also.

px_eliezer_

MacLeech Private corporations were hired during the Manhattan Project, such as Stone & Webster, Kellogg, and Union Carbide. The government rarely has the resources and manpower to accomplish large projects without private industry being a major contributor.

Exactly.

The (Army Corps of Engineers) established the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), headed by General Leslie Groves, which operated like a large construction company but on an unprecedented scale and with a tremendous sense of urgency. The Corps, nonetheless, lacked the vital materials, physical resources, and scientific and technical capabilities to develop and build an atomic bomb.

The MED administered contracts, maintained security, and oversaw the work, but urgency and the magnitude and complexity of the project dictated that Groves bring in some of the nation's largest construction and industrial companies, as well as several prestigious universities, as contractors to design, build, and operate the facilities.

The DuPont Company designed and built the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge and designed, built, and operated the Hanford reactors. The Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation designed and built the Oak Ridge electromagnetic facilities, which were operated by the Tennessee Eastman Corporation.

M.W. Kellogg Company designed and built the Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant, while the Union Carbide Corporation operated it.

On the academic side, the University of Chicago administered the Metallurgical Laboratory and the University of California administered the Los Alamos weapons laboratory. Hundreds of additional contractors provided equipment, materials, and other services.

Federal website (still as of today):
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/People/CivilianOrgs/civilian-orgs.html

HooRU

MacLeech wrong the US government has the largest resources and personnel. Look at the Army some time.

HooRU

Hydraglass

YES! I worked for corps that discouraged anything that differed from the pre-concieved. At the labs it was about finding out NOT concluding.

MacLeech

HooRU I was in the Army. They have military personnel trained for specific military jobs and use private contractors to support them for everything from weapons production to food/hospitality-services to transportation to mission operations. Just about every base and every theater of operations has a contingent of civilian contractors for support. Without them the Army couldn’t complete its missions.

px_eliezer_

HooRU YES! I worked for corps that discouraged anything that differed from the pre-concieved. At the labs it was about finding out NOT concluding.

There are smart companies and dumb companies.

Many innovators did their innovation without primary public funding---Alexander Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Samuel Morse, George Eastman (Kodak), Chester Carlson of Xerox (who was actually a patent lawyer), Edwin Land (Polaroid), Thomas Watson at IBM, Walt Disney, Hewlett and Packard, and so many others.

And of course the old Bell Labs of the original Bell System did large amounts of basic research.

Bell Laboratories people invented the transistor in 1947.

And Bell Labs folks (Penzias and Wilson) discovered cosmic rays in 1964.

If there is a problem TODAY with companies, it is that too many of them totally focus on quarterly-earnings to keep the stockholders happy. This is often at odds with long-term projects and research.