Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/30/starliner-launch-a-go-despite-helium-leak.html
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Perhaps I’m being ignorant, but say we put Boeing’s board of directors and C suite in there for a test fire. How quickly do you think that leak would be fixed?
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Right? Like the glasses of water in Erin Brockovich.
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Well that’s obviously a BS answer to this situation. The purpose of a test flight is to find any new problems that you wouldn’t have found on the ground, not to see if problems already identified in a pre-flight check are going to be fatal or not.
Obviously NASA knows better, but they’re succumbing to “launch fever” anyway:
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Boeing isn’t even past their “history” of production issues.
This (manned!!) test launch really needs to be flawless in order to start restoring confidence in their ability to detect and permanently fix flaws before lives are risked. They’ve already failed.
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I hope one of the Astronauts isn’t set to testify against Boeing.
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They can’t keep helium valves from leaking on Earth, but NASA is predicating their entire Artemis program on the as-yet-entirely-hypothetical technology to conduct orbital refueling with hydrogen, which is even more prone to leaking?
The future of crewed spaceflight in this country is looking pretty bleak.
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thats methane and oxygene, cause elno knows rocket best, even bettera than boeing.
The fuel depends on which lander NASA ends up using. The Blue Moon lander does require in-orbit hydrogen fueling.
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The astronauts sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks? So what!
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thnx, I had no idea. the whole artemis mission looks more and more completly broken beyond repair, no matter which lander they end up with. I really believe there will be no moon landing, at least not this decade.
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not by us at any rate. china’s space program seems likely to get there well before ours does
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Ends up using? Elon won the HLS contract and Jeff lost the lawsuit against it.
For now NASA is stuck with SpaceX and The Rocket That Can Do It ALL! ™
Which will end in tears and maybe a crewed landing. In ten years or so.
Congress won’t approve funds for another lander in the foreseeable future.
If Jeff wants to fly to the Moon, he’ll have to pay for it himself. And looking at National Team’s entry for the HLS contract they have a lot of major redesigning ahead of them. They are about as ready for a Moon mission as SpaceX is.
Right now China or India have a fair chance of putting boots on the Moon ahead of anybody else.
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NASA’s Stitch: “Helium is a tiny molecule. It tends to leak.” NASA’s standards are dropping. Helium, as an inert gas, is an atom, not a molecule.
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Maybe you didn’t see the latest updates on that whole saga, but Blue Origin won a $3.4 billion contract in May 2023 to develop that lander.
NASA Selects Blue Origin as Second Artemis Lunar Lander Provider - NASA.
Currently it’s slated to be used for the Artemis V mission but you can bet that if they were able to make it work and have it ready before SpaceX that they might use it for earlier missions instead. NASA was talking about the advantages of competition and having two options when they made this announcement.
I don’t hold out high hopes for either lander working within the next 20 years but we’ll find out.
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Fun facts!
Helium atoms (monatomic) are smaller than Hydrogen molecules (diatomic).
Even as individual atoms Helium atoms are smaller than Hydrogen atoms by volume because Helium’s two protons tug on its two electrons more, decreasing the overall volume as compared to Hydrogen’s single proton and electron.
Fun facts!
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Knowledge is power.
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I don’t know, it wouldn’t have stopped an enterprising CEO like Stockton Rush III.
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For years I kept a newspaper clipping pinned to my cubicle wall, an editorial cartoon remarking on the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. The cartoon showed the Challenger up and away from the launchpad, a stream of smoke coming from the leaky SRB seal. Drawn on the Orbiter and its two SRBs: Expediency. Budget. Politics.
This kind of shit never gets old enough to just die out.
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What are the odds there will be one, though.
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