So a couple lives ago I worked with experimental test pilots. Even for light aircraft that job takes more than I could imagine (I remember discussing one AFM limitation and being told quite nonchalantly “yeah, it liked to snap roll if one speed brake picked up more ice than the other”). I got goosebumps reading this. Starliner’s flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought
Starliner redux
- Thread starter pwttogfk
- Start date
invadertim
In my experence, its always my fault.
What’s the over/under that Starliner ever flys again? I know it’s got a late 2025 launch scheduled, but for a while there it seemed like Boeing was walking away from it.
Maurus
The Great Gazoo
I'm sure if they rename it to the Trumpmobile and suggest calling the ISS the Trump Space Hotel it will get funding. Kind of like the F-47...
I do hope they officially name it the F-47... For reasons...
Much like "If you want to "teabag" DC because you're made a brother is in the white house, go right ahead and call it that!"
CFI A&P
Exploring the world one toilet at a time.
Soku39
Well-Known Member
Wow
I had to read that a couple of times to really digest it. The first words in my head were the same as once famously said by Flight Director John Shannon: "yikes, we don't need another one of those!". He said that right after Space Shuttle Columbia achieved MECO on STS-93. A combination of a LOX post pin failure on the right engine that damaged the cooling ducts on the nozzle, and a pretty major AC Bus failure, almost lead to the loss of the Shuttle. Luckily these two unrelated failures managed to compensate for each other and it lead to a successful outcome.
Jeff Ashby was the Pilot on that one, on his first spaceflight. He actually later flew with my dad on Endeavour a few years later, also as Pilot, before doing one final flight as Commander on Atlantis.
You can read a very detailed recount of that here: STS-93: We don’t need any more of those
Or if you're a mega nerd like me they have the full comm loops from mission control:
View: https://youtu.be/O9WjCyWq-iA?feature=shared
That mission immediately came to mind reading Wilmore's recount. Similarly they got lucky. Lucky with which thrusters failed, and lucky that some were able to be reset, and also lucky that they were stable enough to go hands off and allow the reset in the first place. That could have easily turned into another Gemini 8.
I'm very disappointed im Boeing. I had very high hopes for the program and even tried to personally get involved, asking for a transfer when I was facing a potential layoff from the commercial airplanes structural design group. Unfortunately the talks went nowhere, but maybe if they did I wouldn't have gone to fly for a living so no hard feelings. I really hope they can get down to the root cause of the issue and make a reliable spacecraft.
Jeff Ashby was the Pilot on that one, on his first spaceflight. He actually later flew with my dad on Endeavour a few years later, also as Pilot, before doing one final flight as Commander on Atlantis.
You can read a very detailed recount of that here: STS-93: We don’t need any more of those
Or if you're a mega nerd like me they have the full comm loops from mission control:
View: https://youtu.be/O9WjCyWq-iA?feature=shared
That mission immediately came to mind reading Wilmore's recount. Similarly they got lucky. Lucky with which thrusters failed, and lucky that some were able to be reset, and also lucky that they were stable enough to go hands off and allow the reset in the first place. That could have easily turned into another Gemini 8.
I'm very disappointed im Boeing. I had very high hopes for the program and even tried to personally get involved, asking for a transfer when I was facing a potential layoff from the commercial airplanes structural design group. Unfortunately the talks went nowhere, but maybe if they did I wouldn't have gone to fly for a living so no hard feelings. I really hope they can get down to the root cause of the issue and make a reliable spacecraft.
