Could things get any worse for Boeing?\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Last week, the company\u2019s Starliner spacecraft landed in New Mexico, having made its way home<\/a> from the International Space Station without its crew. Left behind are two astronauts unexpectedly stuck aboard the ISS for months thanks to Boeing\u2019s failure. They will have to wait to be rescued by Boeing\u2019s archnemesis, SpaceX<\/a>. The whole thing has been an acute embarrassment for the world\u2019s largest aerospace company already under fire for a series of widely publicized problems with its airplanes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And yet, while public opinion of Boeing may be dropping fast, NASA has stood by the company and repeatedly expressed its confidence in the spacecraft and its commitment to the relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The whole thing has been an acute embarrassment for the world\u2019s largest aerospace company<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That support might be baffling to most people. After all, Starliner is heavily delayed, having been originally intended to perform its first crewed test flight in 2017. And it has faced a series of messy problems during its development, including a failed orbital test flight in 2019. The spacecraft leaked helium on its recent outward journey, and some of its thrusters failed \u2014 another black eye for a company that was once the stand-in for quality engineering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After months of investigation, NASA decided it would rather not put its astronauts on the return leg of the spacecraft\u2019s test flight and would instead leave them on the ISS to be carried home by a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was an underwhelming end to a mission that has been a disappointment for the American space program and a hit to Boeing\u2019s reputation in particular. Originally scheduled to last eight days, the mission ended up stretching over three months of tedious troubleshooting as engineers tried and failed to find a reliable fix for the thrusters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But NASA won\u2019t throw Boeing under the bus<\/a>. Its position is clear: the SpaceX Dragon is not enough. The agency wants two commercially operated transport options to carry astronauts to the space station.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe main goal of the agency\u2019s commercial crew program is two, unique human spaceflight systems,\u201d Steven Siceloff, NASA spokesperson said in comments emailed to The Verge<\/em>. \u201cShould any one system encounter an issue, NASA still has the capability to launch and return crew to ensure safety and a continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo by Aubrey Gemignani \/ NASA via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The reasons for wanting two providers are both practical: NASA can still get its astronauts to the ISS if there is an issue with one company \u2014 as happened briefly with SpaceX recently<\/a> \u2014 and also, presumably, because of wariness over a single private company holding that much power over the US\u2019s access to space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Both House lawmakers<\/a> and Pentagon officials<\/a> have expressed concerns over NASA\u2019s reliance on SpaceX, which was only further emphasized<\/a> by the choice to use a Crew Dragon to carry the Starliner astronauts home. And while SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has enjoyed a broadly positive relationship with the US government, his increasingly temperamental behavior<\/a>, overt racism<\/a>, and right-wing political leanings<\/a> reportedly<\/a> have officials worried about his control over launch capabilities and space infrastructure through Starlink.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s wariness over a single private company holding that much power over the US\u2019s access to space<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n NASA has made no comment on Musk or his behavior, nor has it waded into the hostilities between SpaceX and Boeing. The agency has expressed public support for both companies in their space development \u2014 despite the ongoing disappointments of Boeing\u2019s Starliner program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n NASA is walking a difficult line, dealing with a tight budget while trying to push through expensive and ambitious plans to return to the Moon. It must maintain positive relationships with both of the companies it relies on for transport to the ISS, while still promoting an image of innovation and careful spending to the public and staying out of the increasingly negative news stories about the current state of Boeing and its relationship with SpaceX.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe companies have some bad feelings toward each other, and their own sets of fans have bad feelings toward each other, and so then NASA, in a sense, is kind of caught in the middle,\u201d said Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida, who worked at NASA on human space flight programs for over a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo by Joe Raedle \/ Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Many of the headlines about the Starliner have focused on the plight of the two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were traveling in the spacecraft. While it\u2019s hard to ascertain the seriousness of the Starliner\u2019s problems until a full review of the mission is completed, it is important to note that the astronauts are safe aboard the space station and are not in any particular danger. Initial reports<\/a> suggest that they would have been fine had they traveled home on the Starliner as originally planned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Officials have alluded to a great deal of debate within NASA<\/a> about whether the Starliner should have been used to fly the astronauts home. But in the end, NASA defaulted to the cautious approach, a norm within the agency that has been in place for decades following the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters<\/a> in 1986 and 2003, respectively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n NASA didn\u2019t need to use the Starliner because, for the first time, there was another option available. The Starliner would probably have been safe to fly, most observers seemed to agree at the time, but why take the risk? With the SpaceX Dragon, there was a known safe alternative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe companies have some bad feelings toward each other\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn the past, they may have gone ahead and flown it,\u201d Metzger said. And if SpaceX were running its own test flight that experienced similar problems and was in charge of decision-making, he said, it might have chosen to go ahead with the flight, \u201cbecause SpaceX doesn\u2019t seem to be as cautious as Boeing or NASA.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was this culture of risk-taking that allowed SpaceX to rapidly develop its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, which were certified as safe for human spaceflight in 2020. That was still three years after the initial aim of 2017, but it has been in regular use since then, carrying astronauts to the ISS on eight operational NASA commercial crew flights.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The drawbacks of SpaceX\u2019s \u201cmove fast and break things\u201d approach are explosive rocket tests like the Starship launches<\/a> and the environmental damage they cause and a workplace that is reportedly rife with sexism<\/a> and worker injuries<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n When it comes to human spaceflight, the consequences for misjudging a risk could be lethal, and there\u2019s good reason for caution. Developing spaceflight hardware for human use is not like other startup fields or even like satellite deployment, as previous disasters have shown. The total number of companies that have developed a fully orbital human spaceflight vehicle is just two, and it remains to be seen whether SpaceX is the outlier in terms of successful testing or Boeing is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Now, the future of the Starliner is unclear. NASA has not yet announced whether another test flight will be required before the Starliner can be certified for regular use, and Boeing\u2019s commitment to the program seems to be wavering.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Boeing declined to answer specific questions about the Starliner before its departure but said in a statement, \u201cBoeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo by Chandan Khanna \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of the reasons that the Starliner program has seemed so scattered from the outside is that it is essentially part of an experiment. When NASA awarded contracts for the commercial crew program in 2011, it signaled a new way of doing business: for this program, NASA would not be paying contractors to build its spacecraft. Rather, it would stay hands-off and allow companies to develop their own designs, on which NASA would purchase seats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That model takes advantage of growing expertise in the private space sector, but it requires that space exploration be commercially viable. Why would a company develop a spacecraft if it couldn\u2019t make money from it?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Today, we have billionaires like Musk with SpaceX and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin risking their own capital in service of big space dreams. But for more traditional companies like Boeing, there needs to be a business case to build a spacecraft. With further development work required for the Starliner and the closure of the ISS planned for 2031, it\u2019s not clear if there are enough opportunities for flights to make a reasonable return on investment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to find business models that make sense,\u201d Metzger said. \u201cThis is the hard problem of space\u2026 I don\u2019t think Boeing ever really had a business case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo by Joe Raedle \/ Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To put it mildly, Boeing has had an extremely bad year. From doors that fall off its airplanes and a spacecraft with temperamental thrusters to a workforce threatening to strike, the company has clearly focused more on the bottom line<\/a> than on quality engineering.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But NASA has notably stood by Boeing, expressing confidence in the company\u2019s ability to get the Starliner working and praising the many things about the Starliner that do work well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSpaceflight is one of the most challenging endeavors we undertake as humans, and setbacks are to be expected,\u201d said Siceloff, the NASA spokesperson. \u201cWhat\u2019s important is how our teams work together to understand the challenges experienced and implement changes to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That response can seem puzzling, as NASA has spent billions of dollars with no working spacecraft to show for it. But NASA isn\u2019t going to publicly criticize Boeing because it was heavily involved in the decision to fly the Starliner, and it is toeing a careful line between public relations and political support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t want to attack commercial companies,\u201d Metzger said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to disaffect the precarious political balance that they\u2019ve achieved in Congress, which has enabled funding these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The politicking of what jobs are being sent to what states by what businesses and the impact that has on congressional funding is the reality of the US\u2019s dreamy ambitions of space exploration. But that\u2019s the nature of trying to get things done in a publicly funded agency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t like the way NASA is doing business right now. But what I like to say is, \u2018The space program that gets funded is better than every space program that gets canceled,\u2019\u201d Metzger said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t get through the political process, then, by definition, your space program is a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When it comes down to it, despite all of the issues with the Starliner, NASA is making out quite well. Unlike most NASA projects, Boeing and SpaceX are on a fixed-price services contract \u2014 so NASA is only required to pay a fixed sum for use of a spacecraft, while delays or overruns are paid by the companies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFrom a purely financial perspective, this continues to be a great financial deal for the space agency because they\u2019re not paying the overruns to either company,\u201d explained Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society.\u00a0The overruns for the ongoing Starliner disaster are being paid for by Boeing, not NASA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n According to a report<\/a> by The Planetary Society, the per-seat cost of a flight on a Starliner or Crew Dragon spacecraft is a fraction of that of historical programs like Space Shuttle and Apollo or NASA\u2019s current Orion spacecraft. It\u2019s hard to make direct comparisons because those programs have different aims from commercial crew, but they indicate the high costs that had previously been typical of human spaceflight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis continues to be a great financial deal for the space agency\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n NASA saves money by not having to rent expensive seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft or develop its own alternative and instead pays SpaceX for each ride. With a regular cadence of astronauts traveling to and from the ISS, the payment for those rides should cover the cost of developing the Dragon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Compared to SpaceX, though, Boeing has clearly struggled. NASA awarded a $4.2 billion contract to Boeing for the Starliner but paid just $2.6 billion to SpaceX for the Crew Dragon \u2014 and the Crew Dragon has been in successful operation since 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s part of Boeing\u2019s problem: it needs to clear an extremely high bar. \u201cSpaceX has been so wildly successful that I think it\u2019s created this paradigm of expectation that these will all work and deliver fantastic results for less money,\u201d Dreier said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s like, well, there\u2019s only really one company like SpaceX. That\u2019s SpaceX.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Again, the $1.6 billion in cost overruns for the Starliner is being paid by Boeing and not NASA. The company\u2019s then-CEO, Dave Calhoun, said<\/a> that the company would never take on a fixed-price contract again. But this points to a different kind of risk: what happens if Boeing cuts its losses and walks away from the project entirely?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A report<\/a> released on Tuesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine throws some cold water on NASA\u2019s optimism about commercial partnerships. It warns that continuing to outsource highly specialized projects to commercial entities could erode NASA\u2019s internal expertise and leadership \u2014 essentially, that NASA could become an organization of middle managers rather than engineers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n NASA could become an organization of middle managers rather than engineers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And it raises the risk that comes from a commercial provider failing to deliver on its contract or exiting the market altogether. In the case of Boeing, the company is big enough to absorb the financial hit of a long development process, but some of the smaller companies NASA is now contracting for lunar projects may not be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When the Starliner landed safely, NASA officials were quick to point out all that went well in its test flight and to reiterate their confidence that Starliner would fly astronauts in the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Boeing\u2019s response, however, was rather tepid. The company has yet to state a firm commitment to the Starliner\u2019s future, and in a brief statement, Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing\u2019s commercial crew program, said, \u201cI want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing. We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If Boeing bows out, it could potentially license the Starliner to another operator, Metzger speculated, where it could be used for tourist flights or trips to planned commercial space stations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But Dreier thinks it\u2019s unlikely that Boeing would walk away from the Starliner at this point. There\u2019s still $1.9 billion of potential revenue<\/a> on the table, not to mention the reputational hit of giving up on the spacecraft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBoeing happens to be a fantastically rich, deep-pocketed aerospace contractor that pulls in $50 billion a year, mainly from government contracts, so they can absorb a $1.6 billion loss,\u201d Dreier said. \u201cIt\u2019s too high profile of a project for them to give up on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Image: Kirk Sides \/ Houston Chronicle via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the short term, there\u2019s no doubt that Boeing has dramatically underperformed in its development of the Starliner, especially when compared to SpaceX. But in the long run, having two commercial providers of transport is essential \u2014 and still a great deal for NASA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When held up next to the endlessly ballooning costs and excesses of other NASA programs such as the agency\u2019s Space Launch System rocket, the commercial crew program stands out as promoting exactly the kind of fierce competition between companies that is said to drive innovation and lower costs. Many people have called for NASA to take more risks and to meet the lean startup culture that now characterizes the upper echelons of American businesses. \u201cThis is exactly what we want NASA to be doing,\u201d Dreier said. \u201cI think NASA should be very pleased with everything that\u2019s happened, despite what is going on at Boeing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n NASA, of course, isn\u2019t a startup. It must balance a drive for efficiency and speed with the need to keep astronauts safe and prevent another nationally traumatizing catastrophe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But most importantly, there\u2019s a pressing need to avoid a single US provider controlling access to the ISS. SpaceX\u2019s dominance in space has already resulted in Musk having an outsize influence<\/a> on global politics, concentrating more power in the hands of one man whose judgment appears dubious at best. The only way to hedge against this is to have a second provider available. <\/p>\n<\/div>\nOverreliance on the world\u2019s richest man<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
Weighing the risks to human life<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
Growing pains of a commercial space sector<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
A precarious political balance<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
Financially, NASA comes out on top<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
Boeing is picking up a $1.6 billion bill<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
How the sausage gets made<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n