Starliner Lands At White Sands

Ah, too bad.
They did some rig testing but I’d ask if they were able to duplicate the problem found in the vacuum of space.

They did not stay in their house and they did not fly. What more do you want?

I have to laugh, Lowell, because my experience was nearly the identical to yours, except reversed… legacy Boeing guy having problems with the McD management.

First off, I believe you…I’m not casting doubt on your experience. But I was in legacy Boeing when the companies merged, and our chain of command put the LA-area former McD executives in charge of our operation. We were under pressure to transfer to LA (in one case, we were put to work on a proposal effort and told the program itself would be worked out of LA…oddly enough, we couldn’t seem to get any support from there for the proposal effort. As far as attitude towards the rank and file, well, this was the period one one one of the high mucky-mucks publicly proclaimed the engineers were a bunch of prima-donnas.

Harry Stonecipher engendered such hatred that to the day I retired in 2017, there were STILL cartoons hanging in the offices about him. I’m thinking of the one showing him and Phil Condit as Laurel and Hardy.

A lot of this led to the engineering strike in 2000. I wrote an email about my experiences to several of my writing friends and editors, and one suggested I send it to AvWeb. And for my sins, they published it:

But again, I don’t doubt your experiences in the slightest. We all experienced it differently.

One of the things we used to say was, “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money.” I’ll lay odds you and your co-workers told the same thing the other way around… :slight_smile:

They did not tell of the sixth thruster problem and the guidance “blip”, in the first news cycle. Wonder why?
Good call then to leave the test pilots up there. The extra weight might have thrown the thruster even more out of kilter… And was the guidance blip similar to a gps sending a heavy truck over a light bridge, caught in time, or “no satellites available…”

Would be good to have three competitors.

Hollywood space cadet Jeff Bezos’ ‘Blue Origin’ project has flown people into space - including himself, commendably.

The company makes engines for the Vulcan heavy rocket and for the ‘upgraded Atlas IV’ replacing Russian engines. And is developing other engines including one using LNG with LO2.

Three competitors would be an excellent idea, but I’m not sure there’s enough business for TWO separate companies, let alone three.

There’s really not that much use for crewed space capsules. Just about everything you use people for in space, you can do with an autonomous spacecraft, for considerably less money.

There’s really not enough financial incentive for manned missions. Right now, the only thing folks are flying people into space for is to support the two space stations…and no one claims that the ISS or the Chinese station could exist without massive government investment. Which, of course, isn’t getting paid back.

It’s all a matter of national/corporate pride… and that doesn’t put a single penny in the coffers.

Two things are needed. First, the replacement of chemical rockets with something far more effective. Don’t know what it’ll be (hey, I’m a rocket engineer, not a rocket scientist), but we need to keep from having to burn a million pounds of rocket propellant to put a thousand pounds in orbit.

The second thing? Well, right now, tourism is the only potential use of manned spacecraft. And, at $20 million a pop (for orbital flight), how much of a market is there? And after the first group frying of billionaires after a failed mission, THAT’LL go away. How many tourist dives have been made on the Titanic since the mini-sub went crunch?

No, what’s needed is a massive financial incentive…a gold rush. Robert Heinlein, in “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” had the main character slip a bag of diamonds into the first manned rocket to go to the Moon and instruct the astronaut to claim that he’d found them scattered on the Moon’s surface. On his return, the astronaut gave him his bag of diamonds back…plus three bags more, of ACTUAL diamonds he’d found there.

We need a financial incentive to send humans into space, and we need to develop technology to let us get there cheaper. Without those, it’s a dead end.

And after the first group frying of billionaires after a failed mission, THAT’LL go away. How many tourist dives have been made on the Titanic since the mini-sub went crunch?

They’re on their way:

New Titanic Submersible

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I read your attached article about the strike - and I recall those days. Those of us working as engineers in Houston did benefit from the outcome. Wasn’t a given as we had no union. I think I did make a financial contribution to the SPEEA fund. And Ron, you will be happy to know that those of us in Houston did not like Stonecipher either. MD employees paid a price in the MD-Boeing merger or buyout or whatever one would like to call it. We lost retiree medical benefits and approximately 1 billion dollars of the pension fund was pulled out for places unknown.

I will never know why/how company board of directors choose CEOs. Condit - shown the door, Stonecipher - shown the door, McNerny - following in Jack Welch’s footsteps, Muilenburg - shown the door, Calhoun - shown the door. All the while us rank and file engineers were worrying about our careers and whether or not there would be a time when we would be out on the street looking for another job. Quite a few did have their careers destroyed by the shenanigans of these CEOs.

Did this history play a role in the Starliner problems? Probably, most certainly indirectly.

Way back when, I watched the Apollo flights on an itty-bitty black and white TV. and I decided I wanted to be a part of that. My path was also 4 years in the Air Force before getting a AeroE degree. Well, my contributions never got beyond LEO. And as Ron points out, as long as we are dependent upon chemical propulsion, our horizons are limited. Musk is really pushing the envelope and I believe he will be making the most of what we have available today.

My son is now working the HLS (Human Landing System?) program. Only getting to the Moon, but that is further than I got. All though this program is feasible from an engineering standpoint, I doubt that there is enough money or competent leadership being committed to have success - at least looking back at what has happened in the past.

Ron refers to Heinlein in his post. Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Pohl, Niven and hundreds of other science fiction authors have described what could/might come to be. Some of what was science fiction, has become reality. Probably sometime in the future a “rocket scientist” will come up with a viable reactionless drive. Hey, it might happen! Just think what that would do to the world economy.

I should have never created an account to be able to comment on this forum. I need to stop.

“I should have never created an account to be able to comment on this forum. I need to stop.”

Not at all, Ben. It’s good to have us steely-eyed space veterans to class up this joint. Enjoy all your write-ups, and the view from the “other side.” Comments are going to close on this thread in a day or so, anyway.

A few years after I retired, I indulged my space history with a tattoo. It’s a Flash Gordon space ship, with Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation above it. I’d post a picture, but I think AvWeb doesn’t allow skin pix. :slight_smile:

A tat? You are a wild one.

I’ve been out of the game 10 years now. The one guy I used to keep in contact with on the Commercial Crew program left about 3 years after I was outed due to medical issues. Another guy I worked with on the Shuttle program is now doing airplane support out on the west coast, 737 mostly I think. Another Shuttle guy I used to work with has also been retired for a while. All though his wife is still in the Space business. So I no longer have any visibility into any of those goings ons at Boeing.

I’ve always enjoyed reading what you have written in various venues through the years. Wish I could buy you a few adult beverages as payback.

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