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Friday, September 13, 2024

A Peripatetic Friday of Musings

While most of the stories I see in the usual sources is about missions with dates months out in the future, there's a few that go together - and one that doesn't really.  

Is Boeing Going Into Collapse?

This is combining a few stories. I'll try to be brief and coherent. 

First story. The return of the Starliner CFT-1 capsule (Crewed Flight Test) isn't news - that was last Saturday.  But it wasn't widely reported that there were new problems on the return flight.

One of 12 control jets on the crew module failed to ignite at any time during Starliner's flight home. These are separate thrusters from the small engines that caused trouble earlier in the Starliner mission. There was also a brief glitch in Starliner's navigation system during reentry.

The fact that these are different thrusters from the ones that caused them to come back without Butch and Suni doesn't sound good. Did the redesign/recertification task just get bigger? 

Second story. Then there's a story that Eric Berger at Ars Technica related on the 11th.  As a senior journalist with many good sources, he gets invited to the big events and passes on a story that doesn't sound good:

Early on Saturday morning, after Starliner successfully landed in New Mexico without its crew on board, I attended a press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. There were six chairs set up at the table for officials. A week before, NASA had sent out a press release announcing this post-landing news conference, noting that two senior officials from Boeing—Mark Nappi and John Shannon—would be in attendance.

But at about 12:20 am, 10 minutes before the news conference was due to start, two of the chairs were removed. I asked a NASA spokesperson what was happening and was told that I'd have to ask Boeing. Shannon and Nappi were no-shows at the news conference.

Boeing decided, soon after the Starliner mission ended, not to attend this conference? Were there more problems than just the "one of 12 control jets" failing that haven't been reported? Was it the same one that failed to ignite every time or was it a different thruster every time they tried to fire them, but still only one of the 12 at any time?  Eric goes on to suggest, "one possible explanation is that Boeing has decided it will exit the Commercial Crew Program."  

Third story: This one is today. More than 33,000 unionized Boeing workers went on strike today. In doing so, they rejected the deal their union had made with the company. It has (thankfully) been many years since I had any management responsibilities and what I knew about the subject of unions and what's legal has gone through enough half lives of decay that I remember essentially none of it. 

The rejected deal tried and failed to win over workers by offering a 25 percent wage increase and promised to build Boeing's next jet in the Puget Sound region in Washington, which Boeing claimed offered "job security for generations to come."

But after International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751 president Jon Holden urged the union to accept the deal—which Boeing said was the "largest-ever general wage increase" in the company's history—hundreds of Boeing employees immediately began resisting ahead of a Thursday vote that ultimately doomed the deal

Taking these three all together, a possible picture emerges of a company in a severe pinch - if not in "life or death" trouble. They're facing big changes to Starliner that has already cost them well over what they can make from it. The cost to redesign and certify the new one has potentially taken a couple of jumps: the new failures on reentry and now the increasing costs of labor.  I know their new CEO has promised to keep going and make it right, but I don't know how long that can hold up and how long they can absorb the higher costs. Can he be overruled by the Board of Directors (or whatever they're called)? 

And now for something completely, radically different.

Back to Polaris Dawn. A look at what was up today led to a totally unexpected treat posted to X. Sarah Gillis, the SpaceX engineer who took part in the EVA or spacewalk yesterday, is also a musician.  Sarah brought a violin into space and played with a handful of groups of musicians around the globe

The song in the video, "Rey's Theme," was written by John Williams for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and was performed by Gillis aboard the Polaris Dawn mission's Crew Dragon spacecraft. In the video, Gillis can be seen playing the song's solo violin part alongside videos of orchestras performing the song in studios and on soundstages.

"Inspired by the universal language of music and the relentless fight against childhood cancers and diseases, this moment was created with the hope of inspiring the next generation to look towards the stars," the Polaris Program wrote on its website. The video was created in partnership with with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, for whom the Polaris Program is raising money throughout the mission, and El Sistema USA, a program that aims to promote music education "for positive societal impact."

A still from "Harmony of Resilience," a music video released in space on Sept. 13, 2024 by the Polaris Program during its five-day Polaris Dawn mission. (Image credit: Polaris Program via X)



15 comments:

  1. I had read one new problem was a new hydrogen leak. From an article post-return on a webpage I forget the name.

    Meanwhile, NASA continues to publicly state that Butch and Suni would have been safe returning of Sunkliner.

    And, right on cue, murmurs at Business Week and Forbes is SpaceX looks like a monopoly.

    Two weeks ago I read that Sierra Space had, or was about to, tender an offer for Starliner and associated stuff. Actually, a better offer than the expected frontrunner LoughMart. I wonder what happened to that story.

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    1. What a dummy. Helium. I don't known why I typed hydrogen.

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  2. Boeing has nothing to fear. Government Bail Outs are this nations stock in trade.

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  3. Boeing is dead, the corpse is just still moving. The move by the union is a complete d*ck move. And can only lead to more and more failings.

    We've seen this before. Unions going past what workers actually want and end up killing the company and industry. Unions did it to the textile industry in the American South, to the American garment industry, to, well, the American automobile industry, and are the main cause of the failings of the American educational system (can't fire bad teachers dontcha know.)

    Starliner? I read somewhere, couldn't find it later, that there was some issues with the heat shield seen during landing.

    As to the violin playing, cool. Since Inspiration was cancelled, it's nice to see Arts In Space!!!

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  4. i talked with a local engineering manager earlier this week about possibly coming back to work after my foot heals enough for me to drive. He "interfaces" with Boeing, and he said that while there was some good in the contract, if he was a Boeing worker he would have voted against it. YMMV.

    I'm not a fan of unions; I was a member of the Syracuse Draftsmens' Association in the late 80s and early 90s(GE Syracuse), and they never did anything for anyone but the most senior designers. But some places are such $hitholes to work in that the unions are needed.

    As to the violin playing, wonderful, wonderful. The Polaris Dawn mission has already exceeded my expectations, and this is another jewel.

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  5. Read elsewhere that the Boing offer included several expensive(to employees) items that reduced the supposed 25% raise into something more like 10%. Made for great headlines though.

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  6. It seems to me that Boeing is the victim of sabotage. As an icon of American manufacturing excellence, it is an attractive target for those who mean us ill. Just saying...

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    1. I agree fully - whether intentional, or a side effect of DIE, I can't say.
      My suspicion is that it's a result of hiring for the wrong qualities and focusing on the wrong thing rather than a deliberate plan to destroy the company.

      I'm curious, what problems is Airbus having: Do we not hear about them or are they not having any?
      Jonathan

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  7. not to bring politics to our host's commenting section but ...
    looking at the refusal of a 25% increase through my wry eye, I can see that our inflation (cost of purchasing food and other necessities) must be somewhat greater. Hmm! why do the MSM tell me otherwise.

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    1. Remember that inflation varies across the country.
      I wouldn't be surprised to find that it is worse in already expensive Seattle area that in much of the country.

      One example: gasoline is a dollar per gallon more where we live than where my wife's family lives. I know that California is way more than here.
      Jonathan

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  8. I'd like to hear more about the road case Gillis stored her violin in when the atmosphere was evacuated from the capsule. My wife is really touchy about temperature and humidity when out and about with her violin and cello.

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    1. That's an interesting question. I imagine your wife's concerns are like what I've seen about acoustic guitars. As you probably expect, I haven't seen a word about it. There might be a way to ask someone - either Sarah herself or some spokesperson for the Polaris programs. They're at https://polarisprogram.com/. I don't see an "email your questions" page, but there might be something there.

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  9. SiG, the union strike is just the proverbial icing on the cake. Recently in the larger business world, even if a strike goes well for the union it seems to inevitably end up causing layoffs and closures down the road: the salaries are higher, but the income does not increase by the same amount.

    Also, just a general thanks on your diligence on space news. This is actually one of the few bright points for me about the future but I would be terrible about tracking it all down if it were not in one place.

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    1. For reasons known only to Google, it put your comment in the "special SPAM folder" for me to approve. Probably because you didn't offer slobbering support to unions no matter what they do. It is Google, after all.

      And thanks for your compliment on keeping track of this stuff. I've been a "space nut" since the Mercury and Gemini days. It's one of the reasons I moved here, where I can go watch launches or watch from the backyard. It's the most active it has ever been here and it seems to be at least 90% SpaceX. I have been spending more time tracking things that interest me than before it got this busy, and it's great to have such a wonderful readership that contributes so much and the many more who come to read.

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    2. To be fair, this is not the first time I have been denoted as "special".

      This stuff is actually the reason I was interested in space travel in the late 70's and early 80's. Seeing artists' conception of space stations and human in space - confounded with science fiction - made me yearn for more. The fact that the official outlets have limited themselves (versus SpaceX) saddens me greatly.

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