this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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I wonder if Starliner will be operational before the ISS is decommissioned. NASA should have picked Dreamchaser instead.
Probably, but it's looking increasingly unlikely that they will fit in all 6 flights.
As for Dreamchaser, well, hindsight is 20:20, and Dreamchaser has had its own share of delays. Would development have been faster with increased funding from NASA? Probably, but its difficult to know by how much. Its easy to imagine a parallel universe where NASA is getting flack for choosing Dreamchaser instead of going with the "reliable Boeing option".
I hope Dreamchaser flies soon though, and that a crewed variant is eventually developed.
At this point it's impossible for Starliner to get 6 staggered flights in. They'd have to do back to backs, which NASA doesn't seem interested in. I do kind of wonder if NASA would try a contract mod to fly a Starliner to a commercial station, but I'm sure Boeing would run into a brick wall of software updates to make that happen.
Why would NASA have an issue with this?
I probably misremembered/misrepresented that. NASA would actually have to book more SpaceX flights to not have Starliner go back-to-back at this point.
The bigger question might be what Boeing's refurb/turnaround time is, and whether they can even prep one of their two vehicles and a new service module in 5 months to support a back-to-back.
Ah, I see. I hadn't though of the launch cadence challenge from Boeing's side, but I can see how it could be an issue.
While I think Sierra Space would have done better than Boeing, they seem closer culturally, organizationally, operationally, etc to Lockheed than they are to SpaceX.