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.
It’s a good thing rubber seals have never caused any problems in spaceflight
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.
You gotta be fuckin kidding me. How could they launch this thing?
Because Boeing has evidently become a “safety third” sort of company over the last several decades
I’m sitting down, waiting for Scott Manley’s analysis video to drop. I’d hope there are valid and sane reasons why they thought it should go ahead, but something like this was so obviously going to happen.
Probably because they were contractually obligated. Nasa and Boeing entered into their agreement in 2019 when SpaceX was making headlines for reusable rockets and the Starship announcement. Boeing had FOMO they might miss out on government money so they made their own rockets with blackjack and hookers. Sadly, now Boeing is working hard to keep up while also trying to not kill more people with their “flying” machines.
“Well, some of them are built so that the front doesn’t fall off at all.” 🤣
Interesting watch from a recent Smarter Every Day video on this very topic. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?feature=shared
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.
