0:00

Coming up on This Week in Space, Rod

0:02

and I are going to talk about Boeing

0:04

Starliner crew flight test. Finally, Boeing is ready

0:06

to launch astronauts for the first time. Here's

0:09

what to know and what to look out for. Tune in. Podcasts

0:12

you love. From people you trust. This

0:14

is Twit. This is This Week in

0:17

Space, episode number 108 recorded on April

0:19

26, 2024. Starliner,

0:28

better late than never. Hello

0:31

and welcome to another episode of

0:33

This Week in Space, the Starliner

0:35

at last edition. I'm

0:37

Rod Pyle, Editor-in-Chief, Badass magazine, and

0:39

I'm here as always

0:42

with Tarek Malek, the iconoclastic Editor-in-Chief

0:45

of space.com. Hello, sir. Hello,

0:48

Rod. Starliner. Woo! I'm

0:50

wearing my shirt. Let's go. So

0:53

you say. Well, we'll see.

0:57

Before we start, I would like to remind everybody

0:59

to please do us a solid, make sure to

1:01

like, subscribe, and other

1:03

podcast things because we

1:06

need to know that we have your love. And

1:10

now, a

1:12

space joke from listener Scott O'Rick. Scott?

1:16

Scott! An alien visiting Earth

1:18

was hungry and walked into the Apple store.

1:21

A few moments later, he was choking

1:23

and died on the spot. Oh, no.

1:25

When the police interviewed the store clerk,

1:28

he shrugged and told him, oh, he

1:31

shrugged and replied, I just told him

1:34

that model was only a single terabyte.

1:38

Terabyte. Terabyte. Because

1:40

it's Earth. Yes. Thank

1:43

you. Thank you, Scott.

1:47

Thank you, everybody. And don't

1:49

forget to save us from yourselves and send us

1:51

your best work or most of your space joke

1:53

at twistatwitt.tv. Now, let's

1:55

hope some aliens don't eat computers. That'd be

1:57

really bad. Let's go to the important. thing.

2:00

I believe this

2:02

week was special. Why was this

2:04

week special, Tarek? Well,

2:07

I don't know, Rod. I feel like

2:09

you're teeing me up for the link.

2:11

Well, it was my birthday. Is that

2:13

why? It was your birthday and not

2:15

only was it your s... so... oh,

2:17

here we go. Swing it. High and

2:20

low. It's Tarek's day. Let's hit

2:22

the groove. Beat on that birthday move. Across

2:26

the stars and moonlit space flights laughing

2:28

in our suits. While

2:31

gaming hard in virtual fights and battle

2:33

sport nights and loops. Then,

2:35

Crashy laughs, tips from his chair. A

2:38

fun, chaotic spook. The

2:41

man wears on with blaring horns. Tonight, we

2:43

raise the roof. Swing

2:50

it through the nebula, nebula. Tarek's got

2:52

his game face on. High store on

2:55

the rise. With every beat, the drums

2:57

are chickens. Trumpets to the skies. Tap

3:01

dancing on a spaceship.

3:03

Moonwalk without shoes. Tonight

3:06

is all about the blast off and the

3:08

party not to lose. Jitterbug

3:11

in the cosmos. Tarek's night

3:13

shots defer. It's

3:20

worth the best lyrics on the planet Earth.

3:23

Hey, Rod, that is great. Thank you so much.

3:25

Well, be by, you know. Well, and the best

3:27

gift of all, sir, as you

3:30

were talking before the show, is that you

3:32

don't know how old you are. You

3:35

know, when we're old and dribbling at the

3:37

old folks home, it'll be good. Well,

3:40

I'll be dead by the time you get

3:42

there. But it'll be good to, you know,

3:44

always be younger than you think you are.

3:46

Yeah, I was telling Rod and

3:48

John and Anthony in the

3:50

back room that I spent the last year

3:53

thinking I was turning 48. That I was already 47 and

3:55

turning 48. And then I did the math this

3:57

week and realized, no. No,

4:00

no, I'm actually 46 and I'm turning

4:02

47. So, at least

4:04

there's that, you know, I'm a little, I

4:07

save one extra year before the Great Five-O,

4:09

but it's creeping up, creeping

4:12

up fast there. And

4:14

now we know why you're a space

4:16

journalist instead of a rocket scientist. By

4:19

the way, I just put in that one wrong note. Oh, it

4:22

blew up. Oh,

4:24

it is not lost on me how

4:26

bad of an actual like astronaut or scientist

4:29

I would be. You remember, I was

4:31

the one that the astronomy internship put me

4:33

on the kitty computer so that I didn't

4:35

overwrite any other, any other more, any

4:37

more data after I erased almost, or nearly

4:39

erased a week's worth of observations of

4:41

the sun. So yeah,

4:44

maybe it's good that I just kind of observe

4:47

from the wrap. That's in

4:49

the little teeny tiny kernel-sized

4:51

astronomy department at USC. Yeah,

4:53

it was in like their research room, which was

4:56

like a closet type thing that just was filled

4:58

with sun computers. And

5:00

me and another intern who knew what

5:02

he was doing and me who didn't

5:04

know what a sun computer was or

5:06

how to type the commands in or

5:08

anything like that. Well,

5:10

at least they had one. When I was briefly

5:13

considering a run at USC before I decided to

5:15

go to real school, I had

5:19

a very strong department and it was nice. You

5:21

know, the people that had gone through it that I knew

5:24

of a group observatory where I really

5:26

liked it, but I do remember it was tiny. It

5:28

was actually nice because it was kind of intimate, you

5:30

know, it was a big impersonal thing like that at

5:32

UCLA. Yeah, we got

5:34

a lot of personal attention, but it does mean that

5:36

if you study astronomy, at least it did like 30

5:39

years ago, whatever it was, that

5:41

all the classes aren't available all the time. So you

5:44

have to take them on a rotating schedule, which meant

5:46

I actually had to stay at USC for an extra

5:48

semester to complete the astronomy portion

5:50

of my degree process to get the minor

5:53

because I had to wait for the next

5:55

class to be available and it was only

5:57

available in an extra semester. So no doubling

5:59

up there. Well, we'll

6:01

consider that to be our first headline for the

6:03

day. Tarek had to stay,

6:05

was held back, not just in school,

6:08

but in his university experience. He

6:11

had the little white cone hat

6:13

on, not for reasons you might think. All right,

6:16

let's get to some headlines. What do you say,

6:18

brother? Yes, let's do it. Let's do it. So,

6:21

Voyager, we finally got a phone call.

6:25

This is correct. Good news. That's

6:28

right. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

6:30

announced just

6:32

earlier this week that they did, in

6:34

fact, after five months of not hearing

6:36

from the Voyager spacecraft, what was it,

6:38

like 11 billion miles

6:41

away, something like that, out

6:43

in interstellar space, that they got that little bit

6:45

back from the spacecraft so they know

6:47

that they are back in contact. They

6:50

know that they have the health of

6:52

the spacecraft for the first time. And

6:56

that's really exciting because, as we were talking about

6:58

in our updates on this in the past, it

7:00

is not like a fast

7:02

process to try to talk to Voyager

7:05

1 out there beyond the stars. I

7:07

mean, it takes 45-hour round trip. That's

7:09

right. It takes two days just

7:11

to have one conversation. And

7:13

so they had to basically isolate over

7:16

the last five months, you know, where is

7:18

the glitch? What system is

7:20

it in? Oh, it's in this little bit, you

7:22

know. And over time, they

7:24

were able to kind of get to the part where they

7:27

are in communication, like, where

7:29

they can understand what the spacecraft

7:31

is saying. It's not sending it out back

7:33

the gobbledygook that it was doing before. And

7:37

you know, we're talking about 47-year-old things. This

7:42

is Voyager, you know, turning 47 this year,

7:44

too. And

7:49

so it's just amazing that they've been able

7:52

to get it because it's been, what,

7:54

it's been since November 14th that all this

7:57

stuff really started. And we're

7:59

talking about. an almost half

8:01

century old computer with all the memory

8:03

of a tennis shoe. I

8:06

mean, it's really, if you

8:09

showed somebody on

8:11

a pie chart what it could do versus

8:13

a modern iPhone or something, you'd just fall

8:15

out of your chair laughing. Oh, wait, you

8:17

do that anyway. You know what I mean.

8:19

Yeah, yeah. And there's a,

8:21

I know that on the video side of

8:23

things, we were showing the story earlier. There's

8:27

a great photo there of the

8:29

JPL team with their arms up

8:31

like in touchdown victory, just

8:34

cheering when they got that

8:38

contact restored. And I

8:40

undersold it. I said 11 billion miles.

8:42

No, they're like 15 billion miles out

8:44

there. And on the

8:46

video for folks on that side, you

8:48

can see that photo now of all

8:50

these engineers and

8:52

scientists on the Voyager flight team. No, I

8:54

wouldn't say. I'd say it's a good

8:56

mix. Well, I'm

8:59

looking. I saw a lot

9:01

of people that kind of look like they're edging up on my

9:03

age, but they would be, right? Yeah,

9:05

but the work's not done, Rod. The

9:07

work's not done here because they do need

9:09

to spend like the next few weeks basically

9:12

adjusting the rest of this flight data software,

9:14

which is where they isolated the glitch over

9:16

these last few months to recover all of

9:18

the parts of that system that

9:21

have to package and send

9:23

back the science data that Voyager

9:25

is still capable of because it can do some. Power

9:28

is very low, so it can't use all of this instrument.

9:31

But they want to make sure that they get that

9:33

all sorted over the next few weeks. So they'll take

9:35

it slow, like we said, 15 billion miles, two-day round

9:37

trip. But they're going to get

9:39

there. And it seems like we're

9:41

going to at least be all set for

9:43

a nice 47th anniversary in September, in August,

9:45

right? Is

9:48

that when they launched July? Anyway, in the

9:50

summer. They launched in the past two months,

9:52

yeah. All right, moving on.

9:55

China's new space station

9:57

had an issue. Oh, you changed

10:00

the... headline. I'm sorry. China's Shenzhou 18

10:02

crew launches to Tiananong space

10:05

station which was hit by

10:07

a piece of space crud. Yeah, yeah.

10:09

Well, they didn't happen at the

10:11

same time. This is really interesting but the

10:14

news came out kind of back-to-back. Essentially this

10:16

week, actually on my birthday because I think

10:18

that China was trying to give me a

10:20

message. They launched

10:22

their new crew to the International, to the Tiananong

10:25

space station. It's a six and a half

10:28

hour trip. They've got it pretty swift

10:31

like like like

10:33

Roscosmos and SpaceX and

10:35

this includes I think the

10:37

commander or the

10:39

a member of the Shenzhou 13 crew who is the

10:41

new commander as well as two

10:44

others who joined three other astronauts on the

10:46

station now. So a big crew change. But

10:48

this and you know this has been going on

10:50

now for several years. China

10:52

now has a basically permanently crewed space

10:55

station in orbit but what we

10:57

did find out just days ahead of this launch

10:59

and it came out actually during the press conference

11:01

for this mission is that

11:03

the Shenzhou 17 crew. So

11:05

that's the crew that was already up there.

11:08

They did two spacewalks over the last few

11:10

months. I think one was in like the

11:12

December timeframe and then there was one in

11:14

March. It turned out that some of the

11:16

tasks on those spacewalks were to repair the

11:18

actual Tiananong space station because it was

11:20

struck by debris and we

11:22

don't know what. Was it like a meteoroid

11:24

or was it actual spacecraft

11:27

debris, space junk, that

11:30

knocked out part of the power system on

11:33

the spacecraft which you never want

11:35

to have on your spacecraft. So they had to

11:37

do some sort of patch ups to

11:40

fix that and it came

11:42

out and this was a report that

11:45

that we had seen from from both

11:47

Shenzhou news as well as like from

11:50

Reuters and others but

11:52

it did come out that China said that they're gonna develop

11:54

new plans in place when it comes

11:56

to space debris management. Now,

12:00

they're saying they're going to do this after

12:03

they've blown up a

12:05

satellite and created vast clouds of debris

12:07

and just throw stuff all over the

12:09

place. Now after a piece hits their

12:12

space station, now they're going to say they're going to

12:15

try to rein that back in. Those are

12:17

kind of two interesting things where they had this debris

12:19

event at the space station, admitted that they had to

12:21

fix it, and then they had a new crew that's

12:23

going to be responsible for dealing with that over

12:26

the next six months or so.

12:30

All right. And

12:32

oh, China has announced partnerships with

12:34

Nicaragua, the Arab Union for Astronomy,

12:37

and the Pacific

12:39

Space Cooperation Organization, which is

12:41

headquartered in Beijing, for the

12:45

International Lunar Research Station, which is their

12:48

answer to the Artemis Accords, came along

12:50

a little later, is not

12:54

hunching quite as high as Artemis is. They

12:56

have, what did I put here? I

12:59

think 10 or 11 partners, and we're up to 38 now. Mm-hmm.

13:04

But, yeah. No. I

13:06

added this just because of the moon aspect. I mean, this

13:08

was from Space News, by the way, that had this story.

13:12

And it was interesting because, as you mentioned, I

13:14

think Slovakia signed the Artemis Accords recently to become

13:16

one of the newest members in NASA. There was

13:19

another country as well. And

13:21

at the same time, you have China reaching

13:24

out to other folks around the

13:26

world, too. So you have Nicaragua now, the Arab Union

13:28

for Astronomy, and the Pacific

13:30

Space Corporation, which is actually an organization

13:32

based in Beijing. But

13:35

it's a- Right. Which is kind of-

13:37

You kind of wonder if that counts, right? Yeah, exactly.

13:39

Like, hey, I got my uncle Fred to sign up.

13:41

So the reason I bring this part up is

13:43

because, in addition to this

13:45

international- We've seen in the past, because

13:47

China has said that they want to

13:49

cooperate with Russia as well on this

13:51

research project, this research base on

13:54

the moon. They actually released a

13:56

very interesting video, and I didn't have time to find

13:58

it. It was on Twitter. to add

14:01

it in here, but maybe we'll add the link in

14:03

after we're done, where they show what like

14:05

all of the Chinese astronauts on the moon,

14:07

a vast kind of metropolis moon base, and

14:09

I think in the background there was a

14:11

space shuttle, an actual space shuttle. Oh that,

14:13

yeah, there was a space shuttle without any

14:17

support structure or external tank taking off in

14:20

the background, yeah it was kind of weird.

14:22

Yeah, yeah. Because of course you need a

14:24

glider on the moon, right? Yeah, but

14:27

it just shows that they are trying to

14:29

push the international aspect of it all. I

14:31

will though be interested to see if that

14:33

international part factors into the Tiangong space station

14:35

to see if we see an international

14:38

crew member or someone on like a crew

14:40

rotation. So you only have two Chinese astronauts

14:42

and maybe one partner from these countries that

14:44

flies up the Tiangong, you know, is there

14:47

for rotation and returns back to Earth, you

14:49

know. That'll be very interesting to see how

14:51

this new program, or not this new program,

14:53

but this this moon program builds

14:56

on the space station because they have that asset up

14:58

there right now. Well it's

15:00

interesting because the ILRS, as we

15:02

like to call it, started as

15:05

international between them and Russia, yeah,

15:07

and yet, and

15:09

they bought the Shenzhou spacecraft, you

15:11

know, the original drawings of design

15:13

for it from Russia,

15:17

and yet we have not seen a cooperative

15:19

flight on Tiangong yet,

15:21

have we? No, no,

15:23

not yet. But speaking of space

15:26

debris, there was a Shenzhou orbital

15:28

module that burned up over the

15:30

west coast and lit up the skies over California.

15:33

So we were just talking about debris, there

15:35

is that too. But

15:38

you know, right now Russia is in

15:40

their partnership, Roscosmos is in their partnership

15:42

with the International Space Station. Unless

15:45

there's some sort of really easy way

15:47

to team up for Tiangong as part

15:49

of like an early partnership for

15:53

this this moon program, it'll

15:55

be interesting to see how that factors in

15:57

because Russia's kind of locked in to the

15:59

space station. Project, the ISS Project right now until

16:02

it's done in 2030 or so. Well

16:05

or until they say they're done. Until they say they're

16:07

done. Or they have intimated a few times. Now we're

16:09

going to leave next week. Alright, we

16:11

are going to go to a break because we

16:13

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16:16

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17:18

let's talk about Starliner. Starliner! One

17:21

of my favorite topics to malign.

17:23

Thank God you're an optimist. I

17:26

am. I'm such an optimist that I have the t-shirt. For

17:29

folks that are just listening, I've got this Atlas

17:31

V Starliner. Well stand up and display it for

17:33

us. Well okay, let's see if I can stand

17:35

up. I'm going to move the

17:37

mic a little bit. Don't hurt yourself. See, maybe I can...

17:40

Oh my gosh, I don't have a lot of room

17:42

here. So I'll stand up a little bit. You can see.

17:44

Atlas V Starliner. There you go. So.

17:49

Because we like to fly our capsules on rockets we

17:51

don't make anymore. That's cool. Well,

17:53

no. They've got enough, at

17:56

least for the NASA contract. Yeah, I think they

17:58

stacked up. What did they say? 16

18:00

of them or something they've got a bunch of

18:03

atlases left Yeah, because it's not just it's not

18:05

just for NASA You LA has to have the

18:07

out United launch Alliance has to have the Atlas

18:09

five rockets for all of their commits for the

18:11

government for their customers And

18:13

then also for four starliner of which

18:16

they need at least six. So I

18:18

will seven actually Because

18:20

yeah, this is this crew this this upcoming

18:22

flight is the crew flight test not to

18:24

be Confused with the operational

18:26

six missions that they have to deliver So

18:30

please expand on that that'll be our kickoff.

18:32

So we have an upcoming flight in Just

18:36

a few days. That's right. Yes knock wood

18:38

I could put here So

18:43

basically after oh my

18:45

gosh, it seems like nearly a decade of You

18:48

know it has been a day. Oh, that's

18:50

right. It's been 12 years. No in 2012.

18:52

I think what was it that? Oh my

18:55

gosh. Yeah, so SpaceX is one of two

18:57

companies that NASA picked to be their

18:59

commercial crew their space taxi Services

19:02

for astronauts on the International Space

19:04

Station. They were picked alongside

19:08

Boeing was picked alongside SpaceX for

19:12

A certain number of flights. It's like a block

19:14

number. So Boeing has six flights to

19:16

fly and SpaceX. I

19:18

think it's like 14

19:22

well, they had said they had a got

19:24

expanded but I think what's important here. So

19:26

this was first kind of Tossed

19:29

down was originally in 2010, but I think

19:31

contracts landed later What I

19:33

enjoyed oh so much was

19:35

that NASA and the government turned to SpaceX

19:38

and say we're gonna give you 2.6

19:41

billion dollars over time. That's right SpaceX went

19:43

yay, and then they turned to Boeing Who's

19:46

been at it much longer and and actually built much

19:48

more of this kind of hardware at the time? Said

19:51

we're gonna give you 4.2 billion

19:53

dollars. Well well to be just to

19:55

be yes, right? There is a very

19:58

clear disconnect. that

20:00

there. Those awards were based on

20:03

bids that the companies put in.

20:05

So SpaceX put in the bid

20:07

of $2.6 billion for the service that they

20:10

said they were going to give. And then Boeing

20:12

put in their bid as well. And

20:14

the reason that's important is because the decision

20:18

process did get released. I'm not sure if we're going to

20:20

talk about it here, but Quinn

20:22

Shotwell said that if she had known what

20:25

Boeing was going to bid, she would have bid

20:27

a lot higher for

20:29

their version of the contract because

20:33

it's essentially the same service and also SpaceX

20:36

was able to get there faster and whatnot.

20:39

Which is interesting given that they got almost

20:41

half the money that they arrived there quicker,

20:44

but I do understand what you're saying about

20:46

Quinn and company. And of course, if you

20:48

could bid higher and still think

20:50

you get the job, you would. I'm

20:53

just saying as an external observer, I admire

20:56

the fact that they got there and

20:59

beat the pants off of Boeing quite

21:01

frankly for almost half the money.

21:03

I mean that shows something about

21:05

commitment. It shows something about innovation.

21:07

It shows something about their vertical

21:09

manufacturing capability and probably as much

21:11

as anything. And this is

21:15

not a knock on Boeing at

21:17

all. It's actually my sympathies not

21:20

being shareholder owned. I think that's a

21:22

huge difference. I think you're

21:24

right on all of those points here. So

21:27

for just to kind of set the stage, the

21:29

reason that we're talking about Starliner is because

21:31

in just over 10 days or so,

21:33

about 10

21:36

days, on May 6th is when

21:38

Boeing will launch their first

21:40

crewed flight test. Just so that I

21:47

make sure that people don't think that I'm kind of knocking them.

21:49

This is their first astronaut flight

21:51

for NASA. It has two

21:54

astronauts aboard that we'll

21:56

talk about later, veterans both.

22:00

two previous uncrewed flight tests, OFT-1,

22:02

orbital flight test one, which flew

22:04

in 2019, which was not a success,

22:07

and orbital flight test two, which flew in

22:09

2021, is that

22:12

about right? 2022? Which was a success for the most part, but

22:14

then there

22:18

was a substantial bit of redesign work

22:20

that was required to get the crewed

22:22

version ready. The crew

22:24

arrived yesterday, so they are on track

22:26

and in fact this week NASA and

22:28

Boeing, I keep wanting to say SpaceX

22:30

because they fly so many astronauts all

22:32

the time, but NASA and Boeing gave

22:34

the green light, essentially the go in

22:36

their flight readiness review meeting actually yesterday

22:38

as well last evening, to

22:41

say that they're ready to go. And that's a really

22:43

big milestone because it means, that's why we're having this

22:45

podcast, it's a question now, it means

22:47

that Boeing is finally ready to fly

22:49

astronauts. The launch is gonna be out

22:51

of space launch complex, I believe it's

22:53

41 at Cape Canaveral Space

22:56

Force Station with a liftoff

22:58

time on a Monday night,

23:00

May 6th of Monday at 10, I

23:02

think it's 54 p.m. off the, make

23:06

sure that that's correct, but it's

23:08

in the evening, it's just before 11 o'clock at

23:11

night. Interesting for a first crewed

23:13

flight that they're picking a nighttime launch because you

23:15

would think they would want as much, but that's

23:18

how the mechanics work sometimes

23:21

when they pick these flights themselves.

23:24

So it's been a long road for

23:27

an hour later, a long road and

23:29

they're finally where they are. Now there

23:31

are some some final I's

23:33

to dots and final T's to cross,

23:36

they're looking at making sure they understand

23:38

all of the little ins

23:40

and outs of the vehicle, they're you know

23:42

weighing some parachute studies just

23:44

to make sure that everything is ready to go, but

23:47

they are confident that they'll be ready to go and

23:49

they're starting to look at the weather and everything for

23:51

for the launch. We'll get more news on that next

23:53

weekend as they get closer to

23:56

the to the flight itself, but that's

23:58

that's where we are right now. My golly,

24:00

if I was an astronaut, I would want them

24:02

to be concerned about the parachute shrouds, for sure.

24:05

Oh, yeah. I just would like

24:07

to back up a step and

24:11

mention that the commercial crew was

24:13

first proposed in 2010, and

24:16

they wanted at least two providers

24:18

so that they weren't dependent on

24:20

just one system to get astronauts

24:23

up to the International Space Station, because, of

24:25

course, at that point, you're phasing out

24:27

the shuttle, and we knew we were going to

24:29

be spending a number of years shoveling money into

24:31

Soyuz capsules in Russia to send more

24:33

and more money to send our astronauts up

24:36

to the space station that we primarily paid

24:38

for, and that started at 36 million,

24:40

it ended up at 86, have I got that right? It

24:45

went, yeah, it went up. It was

24:47

insane. It went up. When I started,

24:50

you know, midway through that program, I

24:52

think the cost for a seat on

24:54

Soyuz was on the average of 70 million by that point.

24:58

This is like 2000, you know, the program had been

25:01

going on for a number of years, and

25:03

it swelled up to nigh on $90

25:05

million a seat on a

25:07

Soyuz vehicle. In a

25:09

capsule that barely has enough elbow room for

25:12

you to blow your nose. I mean, it's

25:14

really, really crowded in there,

25:16

which is not a factor, but nonetheless, the promise

25:20

was strained if not broken

25:22

and became a very abusive relationship, and we

25:25

know those aren't good. Because there

25:27

was no other choice, right? The Space Shuttle

25:29

retired in 2011, and now there's this eight

25:31

year, you know, gap or whatever

25:35

it was, nine year gap, where

25:38

you don't have an option.

25:41

And the sad part is, you knew it was

25:44

coming, Rod. I knew that the gap was

25:46

coming. It's why in 2004, they

25:48

said they were going to have a replacement up in

25:50

time for that gap, and then they had

25:53

nothing because they never funded all the development

25:55

for what became Rod. Well, they made Congress.

25:57

Yeah, yeah, Congress, pardon me. really

26:00

funded properly and so you never got the

26:02

the rockets and the spacecraft that NASA said

26:04

that they needed. So you end up having

26:06

this gap and so they were to avoid

26:08

that in the future. The original contract

26:10

included Sierra Nevada who ultimately was

26:12

not selected they just selected SpaceX

26:15

and Boeing and as

26:18

we pointed out gave unequal distribution of funds as

26:20

you point out that's what they asked for so

26:22

that's what they got. I still

26:25

got to say though you know I'm impressed

26:27

with the with the speed and

26:29

the success

26:32

that SpaceX had a very short period of

26:34

time because it is hard to build these

26:36

things. It is but you know what we've

26:38

been doing this since 1960. And I want

26:41

to make I want you to really make

26:43

it clear there is a reason why there

26:45

was a lot of confidence in

26:47

you know in 2012 or

26:50

so in Boeing there because of

26:52

the track record. Boeing primary or

26:55

a major contractor on the International

26:57

Space Station major contractor on

26:59

Space Shuttle work major contractor in all

27:01

space. Exactly

27:04

exactly and so so

27:06

there is a legacy of performance

27:08

that is included in the

27:11

in the decision-making about yes

27:13

this is a contractor we've worked with

27:15

for many many years so they will

27:17

have they they

27:19

get that kind of benefit right

27:22

whereas SpaceX was at

27:24

that time you know they didn't launch

27:26

they hadn't even landed a rocket right

27:28

for this let alone you

27:31

know flying anything crew rated you know they

27:33

had a lot of claims for that and

27:36

so that's kind of the the

27:38

environment it's hard to look back now because

27:41

SpaceX just landed their

27:44

300th rocket this week

27:46

you know to

27:48

try to compare them as apples and apples but

27:50

you know they had a little bit of a

27:52

flipped comparison back then because SpaceX

27:54

was still relatively new in

27:57

the flight rate I think they were only five

27:59

years into Falcon 9 launches by that point.

28:02

What by the time their contract was awarded? Well

28:04

between 2004-2012 they had launched Falcon 1 and

28:07

the same. I

28:12

think Falcon 1 succeeded since 2008

28:14

so Falcon 9 was still

28:16

kind of just crawling along. Because the first one was in 2010, right?

28:20

Something around that? Yeah, yeah. So this was

28:22

a huge vote of confidence on

28:24

the part of Charlie Bolden and

28:27

frankly enabled and championed by Laurie

28:29

Garber without whom it probably wouldn't

28:31

have happened as an associate. Alright,

28:33

well we've got a lot more to discuss about this

28:35

and we'll do that right

28:38

after this break. So

28:58

let's get started. Some people just know the more you

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don't bundle. Save more when

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you protect more. So to continue the

29:27

comparison, SpaceX has flown crew, they're coming up on what,

29:29

eight flights, right? I

29:46

think they've flown the crew eight flights. The

29:48

crew eight astronauts are up there right

29:50

now. Yeah, okay. Seven

29:53

or eight. So that, you

29:55

know, if you're Boeing, you've got a

29:57

long way to go. And oh, by the way, I meant to mention.

30:00

that Boeing was also considered, in

30:03

addition to commercial crew, they were

30:05

considered for the commercial resupply or

30:07

commercial cargo contract. But

30:09

I don't know which side backed out of that it was,

30:11

if there was an article I was looking at, I think.

30:15

It was intimated that it was NASA

30:17

that said, yeah, let's let you do crew. But

30:20

that might be because they were letting them build the

30:22

SLS as well. I suppose that's always a factor. But

30:25

Boeing is scheduled for six flights, SpaceX

30:28

for a total of 14, and

30:30

we expect SpaceX's contract to be extended. So

30:33

I guess the big question, and I'm jumping ahead of

30:35

myself here, but the big question for me is, will

30:38

Boeing fly out their six flights

30:40

and say, okay, never

30:42

again with a space capsule, or will

30:45

they pick it up and say, oh, this

30:47

is an okay business, let's keep going. Well, it's

30:49

very funny that you mentioned that because that was

30:51

a question that was hot on all of the

30:53

reporters' minds yesterday during

30:55

the Flight Readiness Review. Mark

30:58

Nappy, Boeing's project lead for

31:02

Starliner, did confirm

31:04

things that he had said before and

31:06

that John Shannon, former NASA space shuttle

31:11

official now at Boeing, too, have

31:14

both said that they business...

31:16

Well, John Shannon said, I think recently, like last

31:18

year, that the business case is kind of... They

31:21

have to see what it is for Starliner. But

31:25

Mark Nappy said both this week and

31:27

back in March when Boeing

31:29

and NASA kind of rolled out the red carpet

31:31

to the public at Johnson Space Center

31:33

to kind of go through all of the different

31:36

stages that Boeing

31:38

is super committed right now to

31:40

the Starliner program for NASA, to

31:42

commercial crew for NASA, and in

31:44

a microcosm to crew flight test

31:47

one, this one mission. And they said

31:49

just yesterday that the lives of the

31:52

astronauts, Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore, are

31:54

at stake and they take it super

31:56

seriously. And

31:58

so that's what they're saying. focused on. They

32:01

do have the Atlas V rockets to fly

32:03

them out. They have the Starliner vehicles. I

32:05

think they're building the third one. They're in

32:07

the middle of building the second one right

32:09

now and they're prepping materials for the fourth

32:12

vehicle, I believe is what they

32:14

said back in March. That

32:16

being said, they're committed to

32:18

that. They're not saying any

32:21

other additional use for it, which

32:24

is different than what we're seeing with SpaceX.

32:26

Well, and which is the change what they

32:28

originally said, which was they saw multiple use

32:31

cases for this thing. In fact, but that's

32:33

not entirely their fault. I think part of

32:35

that's because space tourism, while it

32:37

has grown from zero, which is where it

32:39

was, it's not quite what they had hoped

32:42

maybe. Yeah. And just to

32:44

give our listeners a

32:46

bit of a refresher, NASA was not

32:49

the only customer that Boeing was targeting for

32:51

Starliner. And we should point out that Starliner

32:53

is like the kind of

32:55

public relations name. It

32:58

was originally billed as the

33:00

CST-100 commercial space transport 100.

33:03

So number one, basically. And

33:05

their other tenant, their commercial tenant

33:08

was at the time Bigelow Aerospace,

33:11

which was led by

33:13

Las Vegas based hotel magnet Robert

33:15

Bigelow. He was developing inflatable space

33:18

station habitats. He launched two private

33:20

ones called Genesis 1 and Genesis

33:22

2. And in fact,

33:24

launched a private room, a private inflatable room

33:26

to the space station, which is still up

33:29

there now, even though the company itself closed

33:31

down during the pandemic and just kind of

33:34

went away. I believe its assets were picked up by

33:36

and know how

33:38

by Sierra space and a few others that are

33:40

developing inflatable habitats. Anyway,

33:43

the whole point was that Robert

33:45

Bigelow was going to build private space stations and they

33:47

needed a way to get there. And Boeing was building

33:50

a way to get there. And they were going to

33:52

kind of combine to have a private approach

33:54

for scientists, for the public, etc., to do

33:56

it. And so you had those two different

34:00

services and that private one

34:02

kind of fell behind because like you were

34:04

saying the space tourism

34:07

push on the space station front did

34:10

slow tremendously and

34:12

it hasn't been realized even now right there

34:14

aren't private space stations there's a lot planned

34:18

but and Boeing may

34:20

still decide that they want to

34:22

get into that later on if

34:25

they have the Atlas boosters or some other booster

34:27

they could pop a star

34:29

liner on top of. Yeah

34:32

and it is designed so just let's talk a

34:34

little bit about star liner and then we'll jump

34:37

to another break it is designed to

34:39

fly primarily on the Atlas V but

34:41

can also fly on the Vulcan and

34:45

I suppose was there ever any

34:47

talk about it flying on SpaceX

34:50

rockets? I think that if

34:52

they had a need they would figure

34:55

out a way that's an adapter question

34:57

and we have seen the precedent for

34:59

that with Northrop Grumman and

35:01

the Cygnus spacecraft right because that was

35:03

designed to fly on Ontario's rockets they're

35:06

redesigning the Ontario's rocket to you know

35:08

have a US engine and so now

35:10

they're flying the Cygnus vehicles on SpaceX

35:12

rockets and so if

35:15

they had a need case and they found

35:17

like a financial partnership that was agreeable to

35:19

them you can bet that Boeing would figure

35:21

out a way to get

35:23

there. So it's slightly bigger

35:25

than the Dragon at 390 cubic feet

35:27

I think Dragon is 335 and the

35:31

Apollo capsule was about 240 cubic feet I

35:33

think yeah square feet I meant

35:36

cubic feet so

35:40

this is significantly larger and of

35:42

course I think

35:44

you've been inside a Dragon. I've been inside

35:46

a Starliner mock-up yeah it feels like I've

35:48

been inside the Dragon not the Starliner but

35:51

it feels big enough on the ground to us

35:54

but if you're in space and you're floating around

35:56

everybody that experiences that says oh it's a lot

35:58

bigger when you're weightless. One

36:00

thing that Boeing has said is

36:02

that they have a novel seat

36:04

stove system, which SpaceX

36:06

does not. Those seats just

36:08

stay there on Crew Dragon. They're fixed seats.

36:12

But Starliner is supposed to have these

36:14

collapsible seats, and I remember them specifically

36:16

saying that we were not allowed to

36:18

take video or images of

36:20

how the seats could fold or even

36:22

like how they're set up because apparently

36:24

it's really proprietary at that point in

36:26

time just because they wanted to

36:28

kind of keep that part secret. But

36:31

it's supposed to give them a lot more room

36:33

inside and it does have a- Well that's impressive,

36:35

but it's not doing anybody any good on the

36:37

ground. I'm sorry. Well, no. I'm just sad to

36:39

say that. No. Just sad

36:42

to say that. All right. So,

36:44

but one other thing that I would point

36:46

out both for Starliner as well as for

36:48

Dragon when we're talking about comparison is that

36:50

they were originally designed to carry more people

36:53

than they're going to carry. Right. Up

36:55

to seven, right? Yeah. The original

36:57

commercial crew was up to seven because the

36:59

whole plan would be, it would have seven

37:02

people or seven US segment

37:04

personnel on the space station at a time. They

37:07

would need a way for all of them to

37:09

be able to get out in an emergency. Now

37:11

we see the station having max complements of about

37:13

seven or so, but both

37:16

SpaceX and Boeing's

37:18

vehicles are going to carry on the

37:20

average four people per flight. And

37:23

then the rest, those three other potential

37:26

human body slots you save

37:29

for cargo, for supplies, for the other

37:31

things that you wanted to deliver to the

37:33

space station. And you can still do more of that

37:35

than you could on a Soyuz. All

37:38

right. We are going to take a

37:41

short break. And when we come back, Tarek, I want

37:43

you to talk about some

37:45

of the problems they've had, which

37:48

include the need for an Aero

37:50

Skirt, which wasn't originally there. And

37:54

a mile of flammable wire

37:57

wrap tape, parachutes, and.

38:00

Can I say it with a drumroll?

38:02

Well, software and valves. The valves are

38:04

a big one. Many, many valves. Okay,

38:06

we'll be right back. Stand by. Hi,

38:08

it's Alice Anders. Now, I'd like to introduce

38:10

our guest, also known as the website.

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My daddy also originated with no other people. He

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also has a small number of other people. He

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also has a website, which is called Squarespace. You

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can find the code and check out the other

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39:08

let's talk about the issues

39:11

with Starliner because there have been many delays,

39:14

many issues and you know, it's,

39:16

I wouldn't call it

39:18

quite ironic. I guess I'd call it indicative.

39:22

But these problems kind of

39:24

seem to be running temporally,

39:26

time-wise, in parallel roughly with

39:29

737 MAX issues. And

39:32

a lot of industry observers feel that this

39:35

kind of was predicated by Boeing's move

39:38

of management away from Seattle to Kansas City.

39:41

Yeah, you know, it was very

39:44

interesting to see the kind

39:46

of, what was that, the symmetry between

39:49

the troubles that Boeing had with the

39:51

Starliner development and the test flights in

39:53

particular and of course the

39:56

tragic issues that they had with the 737 MAX

39:58

where you had those fatal crashes. the

40:01

investigation and all

40:03

of that. And I think

40:07

that it was a very hard lesson

40:09

to learn. It does sound at least

40:11

from the way that we're hearing from

40:14

Boeing in these announcements and

40:16

these lead up to this

40:18

most recent mission as well as to the last

40:21

test flight, OFT2, the second,

40:24

the kind of redo of their first test flight.

40:26

On their money by the way. On their money,

40:28

yeah, they had to pay for all. Taxpayer relax,

40:30

you didn't have to pay for that one. They did

40:32

get I think a little bit of extra NASA money

40:34

to kind of hold them over. But

40:39

they seem to be a lot more careful

40:42

and a lot more in-depth in the testing. And

40:45

it's why they kept finding new things between

40:48

all these test flights. Instead of just kind of

40:50

pushing through them. You

40:52

mentioned the arrow skirt. It's kind

40:55

of like a ring that goes around the bottom of

40:58

the capsule. It makes it look kind of like a...

41:00

Looks like a round cheese grater. Exactly.

41:02

Got a bunch of holes drilled in

41:04

it. And that's designed because they realize

41:07

that the spacecraft needs a little bit more

41:10

stability during flight so that doesn't buff it around. As

41:13

I understand it, I mean is that your take-through

41:15

rod? Yeah, I think air was

41:18

spilling around the edges. Because

41:21

the capsule is wider than the top of the rocket

41:23

by a fair margin. So my understanding is

41:26

the air was spilling around it and banging

41:28

into the booster. So

41:31

they had to develop that. And

41:33

then when it came to... So

41:35

that was one. But it took them

41:37

a long time to figure out all this stuff. And in

41:39

December of 2019, that was the

41:41

first crewed flight. That was one of the... To

41:44

the public, the first big issue

41:47

came to light because when

41:49

they launched that mission... And I was on

41:51

an airplane when going back to visit family

41:53

for the holidays when that happened. And

41:56

I think they were like two

41:58

minutes away from launch as... as we took

42:00

off and I was like, well, it looks like everything's fine.

42:02

And by the time we landed, it was

42:05

like the mission is irrecoverable. You know,

42:07

we're never going to get to the

42:09

space station because they had a flight

42:11

software issue that they hadn't, they had,

42:14

Boeing had developed portions of the flight

42:16

software, like the part to get off

42:18

the ground, the part for spacecraft separation,

42:20

the part for these rendezvous, but they

42:22

hadn't tested it from start to finish

42:24

all the way to the end. And

42:27

because of that, it just

42:29

didn't gel properly. Well, there was

42:31

an 11 hour shift in its timing

42:33

clock. So it thought rather than being

42:36

at docking, I think it was preparing

42:38

to reenter, which is not what you

42:40

want to do when you're headed for the space station. Yeah.

42:43

And then there was also another thing that they

42:45

found, and the ensuing investigation for that. So by

42:47

the time they got to orbit, they

42:49

were not on a flight path. They could reach the

42:51

space station. So the mission was called off and it

42:53

landed a few days later back

42:56

on the ground. We'll talk about landing in a bit.

42:58

But let me just ask, I actually

43:00

saw an article, I don't remember, space.com

43:02

or Space News, that referred to that

43:05

first test flight as

43:07

in effect being suborbital, which was not

43:09

my understanding. They were at orbital velocities.

43:11

They were at orbital velocities. They had

43:13

to actually do a real history burn.

43:16

Thought it was doing a suborbital mission.

43:18

It thought it was coming back to

43:20

Earth. Yeah. Okay, that was weird.

43:22

Because they orbited the Earth for a few days before

43:24

coming back to Earth. They just couldn't get to the

43:26

space station because of

43:29

the issues that they had had. But they also found a

43:32

second issue in the

43:34

staging process in the software

43:39

that could have led to the spacecraft actually

43:41

getting hit by the booster after separation because

43:43

of the issues. And they narrowly avoided that,

43:45

which was a big dodge. And

43:50

Boeing had said that the computer software

43:52

issue that they had had in

43:54

that first flight, that that's something that

43:57

if they had had a crew on board, they would have been

43:59

able to click some buttons. hey, this is not correct.

44:01

We're going to push this in. And they

44:04

would have actually been able to do that. So that

44:06

is actually, I think, an important point to put. It's

44:09

good to know, but should they have to? Yeah.

44:12

I mean, really, it's sorry to

44:14

interrupt, but this is something that

44:17

we, the big collective we, the

44:20

American side of things, have been doing since 1960,

44:25

It's well understood. I know

44:28

that the money is less than it was during the space

44:30

age. I get that. But testing

44:32

your software was

44:35

seen to be pretty basic,

44:37

just like, and I'm not being

44:39

glib here, but just like making sure that

44:41

your valves don't rust and

44:43

corrode because they're exposed to

44:46

humidity and have hypergolic fuels

44:48

behind them when they're going to

44:50

be sitting in Florida for weeks at a time on a

44:52

launch pad right next to the ocean. So

44:54

this is what I think has me and a

44:56

lot of other people scratching their heads. If

45:00

you've worked at a big corporation, if you've ever

45:02

been a president of a company or an upper

45:04

management, you know

45:06

that there's always more to this than meets

45:08

the eye, including human factors. Cindy

45:11

and Fred don't get along, so the next thing

45:13

you know, something goes wrong because somebody's trying to

45:15

make somebody look bad. I mean, all kinds of

45:17

stuff can happen. I'm not saying anything specific. I'm

45:20

just saying there are weaknesses in the human

45:22

management and performance chain to consider.

45:24

But, you know, for Boeing

45:27

and Rocketdyne, they have to get into

45:29

an arm wrestling match over who's going

45:31

to pay for making valves that won't

45:33

corrode when they're exposed to sea air,

45:35

which is not the proven reason, but

45:38

it's the suspected one. It's weird

45:40

when you've been doing this for well over half

45:42

a century. You're really on this

45:44

valve thing. We haven't even gotten there yet.

45:47

Well, but because we had that problem with 13

45:50

valves, that's a bunch, either

45:53

not opening or not opening fully during

45:55

that run up to that test flight.

45:58

Yeah, to the second test flight. Right? Yeah. Nuts

46:00

yeah, so this is another another issue that

46:02

I think I'm gonna I'm gonna skip ahead

46:04

to this one just because Because

46:07

I'm beating on it like like nobody's so that was

46:09

one thing and that was a very hard lesson for

46:12

Boeing to learn And I'm gonna say that they've learned

46:14

it because here we are, you know less than two

46:16

weeks away from a crewed flight

46:18

with Everything fairly

46:20

signed off at this point It's

46:23

a painful lesson to learn But they did

46:25

learn that and that was I I

46:28

think I suspect that it was very much an

46:30

operational thing that Boeing thought that You know, it

46:32

would be fine to test the

46:34

software in these little micro Bits

46:37

because what we you know, what would

46:40

you know, if it checks out there it should check out together But

46:43

you would hope that eventually they would do an

46:45

end-to-end run now They do that right and at

46:47

least in as much as they can for

46:50

the new ones For OFD to know

46:52

they had to actually go back So

46:54

if we re redo that that test flight

46:56

because they said they were gonna do an

46:58

un-incrued test flight before they do a crude

47:00

flight And and that was

47:02

what they flew in 2022. It took them nearly three years

47:07

No, I don't it took them

47:09

two years in like a month basically because

47:11

that that first one was in December when

47:14

they were ready to fly but they had a lot of

47:16

issues because it was on the pad for so long and

47:19

As you mentioned they had these

47:22

valves that all got stuck and it kept delaying

47:24

the flight they hadn't I think No

47:28

Because they did try to launch and then they

47:30

scrub the launch because they had the spec valve

47:32

and then they went in and then it Took

47:34

a long time. They had to replace the valves

47:37

themselves and and whatnot to to get

47:39

through it now They've got a valve redesign.

47:41

This is what Boeing has said in the

47:44

recently that They

47:46

expect to implement on the Starliner. I

47:49

believe three missions So this this or

47:51

Starliner two so Starliner one the operational

47:53

flight and this flight don't have the

47:55

new valves They just have once they

47:58

know shouldn't corrode over time But

48:00

they found out that those valves were susceptible to the corrosion

48:02

when they're on the pad or just in the ocean

48:04

environment off the coast of Florida, which

48:07

is where Cape Canaveral is on the middle

48:10

of the state, over a long period of time. And

48:16

so that was an unwelcome surprise. But

48:18

you were talking about SpaceX earlier. Do you

48:21

remember those early Falcon flights had to fly

48:23

out of Omelik Island out in the middle

48:25

of the Pacific, and corrosion was a really

48:28

big challenge for them too in

48:30

that harsh kind of

48:32

sea environment too. This

48:34

is something that can happen. I

48:39

think it's kind of like kicking

48:41

them while they're down and saying, hey, we've

48:44

been launching these things for decades, and

48:47

why can't they build one that can't survive

48:49

it? At

48:51

the end of the day, they have been, and

48:54

the sea will do what the sea does, which

48:56

is kind of eat away at everything. And

49:00

so I think that they now know what they

49:02

have to do to fix it, and the new

49:04

ones will have that going

49:07

forward. We

49:09

have to go to an ad, but let me just add two points. When

49:12

SpaceX had those problems in 2008, they're

49:14

a brand new rocket company about six

49:16

years old who had never

49:19

done this before, working with

49:21

guys who were engineers, but they were

49:24

kind of amateurs largely

49:26

in terms of this kind of business,

49:28

as opposed to having built rockets since

49:30

1960s I keep beating on. So I

49:32

just will give them that. Not

49:35

being a SpaceX fanboy, just saying, you expect... I

49:39

think what I'm getting at here, and then

49:41

I'll give it up, is there should be

49:44

this load of

49:48

experience that comes along with

49:51

being a long-spanning, major,

49:53

old-school aerospace contractor that's

49:56

built fighter planes, that's

49:58

built the B-SAP. 2017

50:01

that's built rockets you know, there's 747

50:03

for God's sake and very well, by

50:05

the way I mean they were an

50:07

incredible company for decades and Then

50:10

to be brought down by stuff that

50:12

seems this obvious to people like us

50:15

is kind of embarrassing I get

50:17

it. I get it rod. I get it.

50:19

But remember it's not just Boeing, right?

50:21

There's a reason why it took 18

50:23

years to build a new rocket at

50:25

NASA When this is the company that

50:28

put people on the moon and built

50:30

three different types of crewed spacecraft on

50:32

three different launch systems Within nine years

50:34

and then they and then

50:36

it's like 18 years to just build a new

50:38

rocket You know, there's there's it's

50:40

a very similar Story,

50:42

yeah, but built that new rocket Well,

50:46

okay Okay. All right.

50:48

So let me just one more correction Boeing

50:51

ULA have set aside seven Atlas rockets to

50:53

fly out the contract. So I guess that's

50:56

just for the For

50:58

a starliner Six

51:00

operational flights to one crewed flight. Okay

51:04

We will be right back. Let's go nowhere Right

51:07

is Alice and us now in the guest on

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a far and harm does also decision line of

51:11

a circle and to contact here The

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and affiliates Northbrook, Illinois. Queued up buddy.

52:07

All right. We have one more

52:09

big hurdle that I wanted to make sure that

52:12

we mentioned because this is

52:14

one that actually came up after that

52:17

second test flight and I

52:19

think we agreed it was 2022. I have to go

52:21

back and read. And

52:24

that was the fact that Boeing

52:26

and NASA did announce that when they were

52:28

doing final checks actually there were two other issues.

52:30

Number one was a parachute issue. The

52:34

loading was incorrect on

52:37

the earlier flights in that if there was

52:39

an issue where one of the

52:42

parachutes on the reentry

52:44

for Starliner didn't deploy, the

52:47

lines weren't rated to handle

52:49

the weight in an off nominal situation. So they

52:52

had to do a parachute redesign which they

52:54

have done. But that took a lot of extra

52:56

time to build in which

52:58

is why the mission has been delayed a bit since

53:00

last year. And then

53:02

they found out after the fact and this

53:04

one I think is a little egregious and

53:07

I agree with you Rod in terms

53:09

of like they should have known better. They found out

53:11

that the tape, the cap-thon type tape that they have

53:14

in a lot of the wiring on the inside of

53:16

the spacecraft was flammable

53:19

after they built the spacecraft. And so they had to go

53:21

in. A mile of it by the way. A mile. A

53:23

mile of tape. And that's like

53:25

4,280 feet of tape in that inside.

53:28

Oh, both done. Yeah, yeah. That's

53:30

one of the... Look at you, in your Imperial measurement

53:32

memory. How about that? That and the

53:34

fact that the space shuttle had 44 Bernier Drets, RCS

53:37

thrusters with I think How

53:40

many parts were in the Saturn 5? Okay, well no. I

53:43

have hit my limit. Over 3 million. And

53:47

so that is something that

53:50

they had to deal with and it takes a lot of

53:52

time to go into the spacecraft

53:54

and rip that stuff out. Make

53:56

sure that what you can't rip out is going

53:58

to be safe and covered. So,

54:01

and Mark Knappy did say that he had

54:03

to rip out a whole mile of it, like you said, and

54:05

then go back in. It just adds a lot of time. It's something

54:08

that you wish you wouldn't have had to do and would

54:10

have figured that part out in the first place to

54:13

avoid it all. But they've got it licked now. And

54:16

so now... The way you said that

54:18

was kind of cute. Something

54:20

you wish you had figured out, you know,

54:22

before you built the spacecraft. And

54:28

now we have a

54:30

veteran crew, and it's a very different

54:32

crew than the one that was named at the

54:34

outset. And I want to point that out so

54:36

we can talk about that too. But

54:38

we have two veterans of both space

54:41

station and space shuttle flight, Butch

54:43

Wilmore as the commander, and

54:46

Sunita Williams, Sonny Williams, as

54:49

the pilot for this mission. And they're

54:51

in Florida right

54:53

now at the Kennedy Space Center. They arrived yesterday

54:55

in a T-38 jet along with their backup crew,

54:57

Mike Fink, and they're just

55:00

going through their last days, I guess, on

55:02

Earth ahead of that launch themselves. Wait, that

55:05

doesn't sound right. Well, no, I didn't mean

55:07

it in that way. And you know I

55:09

didn't mean it in that way. But

55:13

before the liftoff, the left. It's

55:15

the rapture. Hold

55:17

on to something. Yeah.

55:23

And they're both seasoned fliers. They

55:26

both have military experience. And

55:29

they were preceded, however, by Chris Ferguson,

55:31

who was there waiting his turn for

55:33

a long time. And finally he said,

55:36

look, I can't wait for this. I'm

55:38

not going to do it. That's right.

55:41

You know, former NASA space shuttle commander

55:43

Chris Ferguson was, you know, when he

55:45

retired from NASA, he went to Boeing

55:47

and he became like their chief astronaut

55:51

advisor, you know, helping with the layout

55:53

of the switches. And they have switches

55:55

on the Starliner if memory serves, right,

55:58

which is nice and visceral. love pushing

56:00

a button and and and toggling a switch.

56:03

As opposed to what you're referring to as glass panel.

56:06

Exactly. Mostly glass panel controls on on

56:08

Dragon although the switches are critical functions

56:10

but yeah. Exactly. And the original the

56:13

original crew for crew flight test was

56:15

actually three people. It was Nicole

56:17

Mann and Mike Fink of

56:19

NASA and and then

56:22

Chris Ferguson as like the Boeing

56:24

astronaut and then when the crew

56:26

flight kept getting delayed and delayed Chris

56:30

Ferguson eventually retired from Boeing you know

56:32

because you know he wanted to spend

56:34

time with his family and whatnot I

56:36

would assume and Nicole Mann

56:38

was slated to be on an expedition

56:40

on the space station so she got

56:42

shifted to a SpaceX Dragon launch because

56:44

they were flying pretty regularly by then

56:46

and she went and flew that

56:48

mission and Mike Fink ended up dropping

56:50

back-to-back up crew with

56:54

Barry, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams then

56:56

joining on as prime for

56:58

this one and and he is on Starliner

57:00

one as the commander so that's the operational

57:02

mission and then that whole other crew

57:04

that Starliner one mission also got

57:07

jogged around Josh Quesada was

57:09

a name for that as well as Jeanette Epps

57:12

NASA astronauts both of them have already

57:14

flown in fact Jeanette Epps just launched on the SpaceX

57:16

rocket on crew 8. So

57:18

a lot of juggling because of the

57:20

delays that caused these crew switches but Sunita

57:22

Williams and Barry Wilmore they've been kind of

57:25

the core for the last couple years now

57:27

and and they've been training and they're they're

57:29

getting all ready for it. Just some

57:31

notes on the two of them Barry

57:35

slash Butch Wilmore has

57:37

a more traditional kind

57:39

of background I guess he had the shuttle flight and

57:41

a Soyuz flight to the ISS the two missions up

57:44

there he was a Navy test pilot

57:46

in jets and known to

57:48

most of us more recently by being

57:50

the guy who ordered up the 3d

57:52

printed ratchet wrench in space which I

57:54

never can figure out how you do that in plastic there

57:57

you go. Sunita Williams

57:59

was also test pilot but in

58:01

helicopters and rotary winged aircraft which is something

58:03

you don't see in the astronaut corps very

58:05

often. Many of them are

58:07

rated on helicopters but that's not their principal

58:09

thing. Shuttle Unisoy is quite

58:12

as well. It formally

58:14

held the record for women for

58:17

the most space walks at 7 and the

58:19

most space walk time at 50 hours 40 minutes.

58:21

Of course these records are there to be broken.

58:25

But I think meaningfully ran the

58:27

first space marathon aboard the ISS

58:29

which is a lot of time

58:31

on the Stephen Colbert treadmill. Oh

58:34

no I don't think it was that treadmill

58:36

either. She ran the Boston Marathon unlike the

58:38

older treadmill that they used to have I

58:41

think. And I remember that was

58:43

like a whole big thing. They had to

58:45

make sure that the treadmill would be able

58:47

to handle a continuous marathon. And

58:49

if memory serves because she has quite long

58:51

hair too I believe when she launched on

58:53

that flight on that expedition that

58:55

she donated her hair before flying

58:57

to like one of those causes

59:00

that makes the hair for cancer patients. And I

59:02

was really wondering I was actually asking my team

59:04

today I was like I wonder if she might

59:07

do that again for this

59:09

mission too but I guess we're gonna find out. Do

59:13

you want to set up a

59:15

special thing? Does somebody want silver

59:17

hair? She was also the second

59:19

woman to command the International Space

59:21

Station after Peggy Wilson actually too.

59:24

So these are not you know spring

59:26

chickens in terms of or

59:29

Johnny come lately as if you will. That's the guy

59:31

who can't remember how old he is. Well no

59:33

no no no I'm not saying that they're old. I'm

59:35

saying they're not like like

59:38

newbies. Exactly they're not newbies

59:40

when it comes to flying in space nor

59:43

would you want them to be

59:45

for the first test flight. And Mike Fink

59:47

as well their backup and

59:50

the Starliner one crew

59:53

is another seasoned veteran of International

59:55

Space Station flights he's flown on

59:57

Soyuz as well and so

59:59

he also knows his stuff. He actually posted a

1:00:01

picture of the launch site.

1:00:04

They flew their T-38s over

1:00:06

the launch site yesterday as we're recording this during

1:00:09

their arrival to the Kennedy Space Station. So

1:00:11

this is a very seasoned crew. And I

1:00:13

think if you would want anyone on your

1:00:16

shakedown crew, these two are the

1:00:18

ones that you would want. And in fact, when

1:00:20

they landed yesterday,

1:00:24

they actually said that they are

1:00:26

not expecting it to go 100%

1:00:29

perfect. In fact, which

1:00:33

Wilmore said, do we expect it to go perfectly?

1:00:36

Well, hey, it's the first human flight of the

1:00:38

spacecraft. So I'm sure we'll find things out. So

1:00:40

what those things are, we don't know,

1:00:42

but he said, and

1:00:44

I quote, that's why we do this. This is a

1:00:46

test flight. And when you

1:00:48

do tests, you expect to find things.

1:00:50

And so whatever those things are, sounds

1:00:52

like which is on the case. And may

1:00:54

I just say, having worked in and out

1:00:57

of public relations, that sounds like a little

1:00:59

bit of a prompt, but okay. Because that's

1:01:01

what they're there for, right? Exactly. And the

1:01:03

public relations people. And well,

1:01:05

and Sonny, Sonny Williams said that they've been

1:01:07

training for every single thing they

1:01:09

could possibly think of. She said, and I

1:01:11

quote, that they had the kitchen sink thrown

1:01:13

at them in all of the different simulations

1:01:15

that they've been doing. So that, you know,

1:01:18

it gives her a lot of confidence that

1:01:20

they're ready to fly. But Elon carries around

1:01:22

the kitchen sink. That's right. Well, that's

1:01:24

only, that's only for Tesla electric cars,

1:01:26

right? No, it was a Twitter. Oh,

1:01:29

Twitter. Yeah, you're right. I wanted in there. Yeah.

1:01:31

I forgot what she thought was very funny. And

1:01:33

the rest of us kind of looked at it

1:01:35

like, what's wrong with you? I had just put

1:01:37

the fact that he owns Twitter out of my

1:01:39

mind. And now it's back in the front. Yeah.

1:01:41

Sorry about that. You're mine. So let's wrap up

1:01:43

with just a sketch of the

1:01:45

mission. I have it down for a suggested launch. I

1:01:48

thought it was May 5th, but I have May 6th

1:01:50

or 7th for an

1:01:52

AT mission, which will

1:01:55

land on land. This is not as much

1:01:57

down the Southwest. the

1:02:00

United States, which is,

1:02:02

that's another interesting thing. Now, originally the Crew

1:02:04

Dragon was supposed to come down either on,

1:02:06

be able to do hard land landings

1:02:09

or oceanic. And

1:02:11

my recollection is that Musk just

1:02:14

decided it was a bridge too

1:02:16

far for them and not to try

1:02:18

for the dry land landing because you have

1:02:20

to have airbags and you have to have

1:02:22

breaking rockets. Yeah, the Dragon was

1:02:24

going to have legs actually. It would have, it would use

1:02:27

breaking rockets. Oh, that was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

1:02:29

yeah, yeah. Because it's reusable. Yeah, you'd want that.

1:02:32

So this is a short flight. This is a, the

1:02:34

crew flight, this is a very short flight. It's a

1:02:36

one week mission, eight days, like you said. It launches

1:02:39

at night because of what

1:02:41

it takes to get to the space station on

1:02:43

May 6th. So that like very late at night,

1:02:45

overnight. And

1:02:48

it will fly up, I

1:02:50

think it'll take them about like a day and a half or so to

1:02:52

get to the space station while they do some shakedowns. They

1:02:54

dock at the space

1:02:56

station that's unlike

1:02:58

some of the other cargo ships like Cygnus, they

1:03:00

don't get captured by an arm. SpaceX

1:03:03

did the same with Dragon. They upgraded it so that

1:03:05

it can dock itself and doesn't need to be captured

1:03:07

anymore. And

1:03:09

then they will make sure that it's

1:03:12

performing as expected at the space station. So

1:03:14

they'll take a lot of measurements. What's the

1:03:16

cabin environment like? Is it, is the life

1:03:18

support working properly? What's the experience

1:03:21

like for the astronauts on the

1:03:23

whole thing? And then they'll undock and they'll

1:03:25

return to Earth and they will

1:03:27

land. And this is interesting and

1:03:29

vague because NASA has says they

1:03:31

will land in the southwestern United States. I

1:03:34

don't know why... So dock and cover, buddy.

1:03:36

I don't know why they don't just say

1:03:38

that they're going to land at White Sands

1:03:40

in New Mexico, which is where they landed

1:03:42

the OFD2, or they could say White

1:03:45

Sands or Mojave, right? They could say that

1:03:47

too if they wanted to, to

1:03:49

keep that as an option at... What

1:03:54

is that? At Edwards Air Force Base.

1:03:56

So is it Space Force Base? I'm not sure.

1:04:00

The the cases that like you mentioned

1:04:02

this can land on land and it

1:04:04

will perish you down. It will deploy

1:04:06

these big airbags and are to kind

1:04:09

of cushion the final blow. after that

1:04:11

the thrusters that we've seen with soy

1:04:13

use a in the past and I

1:04:15

and I will be worked on our

1:04:17

in terrorizes final blow but I get

1:04:20

which is well I woulda this. The

1:04:23

astronauts of describes Er to homeland Landing

1:04:25

to me. As. Like.

1:04:28

A car Like a car wreck. I got a year

1:04:30

at like a ten mile an hour. Like.

1:04:32

You you crash into the other car. That's

1:04:35

what it feels like in in that know,

1:04:37

that's what they did. You know a baseline.

1:04:39

So I've simulated that. Actually, a friend and

1:04:41

I had a car that we didn't care

1:04:43

much for. When. We were in

1:04:45

her late teens, early twenties and. Just

1:04:48

because we were young, stupid men. And that's what

1:04:50

the I'm Stupid men did. the time we deliberately

1:04:52

ran it into a brick wall by some miles

1:04:54

an hour with a senate with laugh else only

1:04:57

and I could tell you it's shocking. And

1:05:00

it didn't do much to the car because cars

1:05:02

built like tanks those those he he could have.

1:05:04

You could have joined the demolition derby and had

1:05:07

a much more exciting time driving backwards in a

1:05:09

in a pit of you know as well. they'd

1:05:11

probably about the same at a breed damages of

1:05:13

got So I have a note here if successful

1:05:16

business and Woods has route will fully test. Life

1:05:18

Support. Main. Your maneuvering

1:05:20

slight and docking. And.

1:05:22

If so, operational flights expected to

1:05:24

start and twenty twenty five now

1:05:26

we'll see, We'll see, we'll see

1:05:29

for sir. I would like to

1:05:31

know a few more things about

1:05:33

the mission arabs as because it's

1:05:35

is A as he talks about

1:05:37

a brand new vehicles and at

1:05:39

this is maybe a little kind

1:05:41

of tweet a rod So please

1:05:43

forgive me by a very serious

1:05:45

if Boeing will let the astronauts

1:05:47

name their spacecraft's like A because

1:05:49

I I I I seem to

1:05:51

recall you worry about. These I seem

1:05:53

to recall that they did announce a name

1:05:55

for the first one when O F T

1:05:58

To ended up, but now I. I

1:06:00

can't remember it off here. Maybe Robert

1:06:02

from an actual experience. The issue same

1:06:05

it Billie well and then then the

1:06:07

oil, my son something. The other question

1:06:09

there is our they're gonna be any

1:06:12

new traditions for. Of for the

1:06:14

spacecraft because there are new traditions for Spacex

1:06:16

about how they go out there and marveled

1:06:18

the rocket how they got to the thing

1:06:21

let's hope they are to to this is

1:06:23

the Russians have for when they launched their

1:06:25

rocket I'm sure you know what I'm talking

1:06:27

about a spice whatever do you mean or

1:06:30

I had all of. A

1:06:32

Real we didn't like Meg that feels very

1:06:35

like a vague why Think this is a

1:06:37

kind of thing where we have a contest

1:06:39

like okay listeners because you're you're falling down

1:06:41

the job and income sending space. Jokes not

1:06:43

all of the with most of you. Go.

1:06:45

Ahead and send us what you know. No fair

1:06:48

looking it up. What? Is the tradition.

1:06:50

Or. Russian cosmonauts before they they board

1:06:53

any rest spacecraft to go into space.

1:06:55

Started back at the beginning and program.

1:06:57

And we don't have any prizes so you'll

1:07:00

do together in a good the my hand.

1:07:02

So because there's actually quite a lot from

1:07:04

this quite a lot of other one that

1:07:06

happens right the launchpad, the other one between

1:07:08

the bus ride out. yeah okay this is

1:07:10

a civic though. they get to eat or

1:07:12

and I are it's Are we done here?

1:07:15

I think so. I don't care. So.

1:07:18

Much. Calendars space ends. Macys.

1:07:22

Oh a Hopefully not rain or

1:07:24

shine, but. We'll

1:07:26

we'll We'll see how this goes. We. They.

1:07:28

The the to to final points they

1:07:30

are looking at the weather I'm they.

1:07:32

They are also looking at whether for

1:07:35

landing because they need the next her

1:07:37

that they have good weather for reentry

1:07:39

and landing tombs and market. Happy the

1:07:41

again of of Boeing or for someone

1:07:43

program said that the spacecraft is designed

1:07:45

to stay at the space station from

1:07:47

forty forty five forty days or so

1:07:49

they can say up there. Oh in

1:07:51

terms of conceivable sense it's about a

1:07:53

month of and a half a set

1:07:55

of of margin depending on how long's

1:07:57

and that are inspected. the missus gonna take that

1:07:59

long all but we were talking about mission life. Yeah, it didn't

1:08:01

start to see a storm that long and ultimately it's supposed to

1:08:04

be able to stay there for six months. Oh yeah, for the

1:08:06

operational flights for sure. So some

1:08:08

market calendars, you know, plan to stay up late

1:08:11

or get up super early depending on your

1:08:13

time zone and hopefully we'll see something special

1:08:15

with Boeing and their first Starliner crew flight.

1:08:18

I'll just call you the next day. Alright

1:08:20

everybody, thanks for joining us today for episode

1:08:22

108 of This Week in Space on Boeing

1:08:24

Starliner. Don't forget to check out space.com

1:08:27

website for the name and the

1:08:29

National Space Society and SS in

1:08:31

ss.org. Tarik,

1:08:34

yes. Where can we find you,

1:08:36

clutching your pearls over the Boeing launch? Well

1:08:42

you can find me. Boy, I

1:08:44

had trouble getting that out. You can find

1:08:46

me at space.com as always getting very excited

1:08:49

for this flight. Our

1:08:51

writer Elizabeth Howe, please follow

1:08:53

her on Twitter, howlspace. She

1:08:56

will be at the launch for us for

1:08:58

this one so it should be really, really exciting. And

1:09:01

you can find me on the Twitter too at Tarik J. Malek

1:09:03

if you like space video games,

1:09:05

sci-fi games. You can find me on the

1:09:08

YouTube at space tron place. That's all one

1:09:10

word. And tonight you just

1:09:12

might find me at the movie

1:09:14

theater to go watch Alien, the

1:09:16

Ridley Scott classic because today April

1:09:19

26th for this episode is Alien

1:09:21

Day. 45 years ago that

1:09:23

movie came out and I'm going to go take my

1:09:25

teenage daughter to go see a space

1:09:27

horror classic hopefully tonight. And

1:09:30

I read that, I was going to mention that. Thank you

1:09:33

for doing so. I will just

1:09:35

say if they were showing aliens in

1:09:37

the theater I'd be there to see it

1:09:39

three times. Alien,

1:09:42

I can kind of take a pass on

1:09:44

because I've seen enough black cat movies where

1:09:46

they jump out from behind the partition

1:09:49

as the rah! It's

1:09:51

okay though, Rod, because in space no

1:09:53

one can hear you scream. Like

1:09:56

yeah. Okay. And

1:09:59

Of course... You can find me a

1:10:01

pile. Books are comrade as magazine a com

1:10:03

and. If. You're in or around

1:10:05

Los Angeles. I'll be appearing

1:10:08

more times than anybody wants me

1:10:10

to the International Space Development Conference.

1:10:12

On. May twenty third to twenty six which

1:10:15

track will not be coming to because he

1:10:17

has other things to do. I know it's

1:10:19

more they weekend I get it were bad

1:10:21

but I'll be all over the program there.

1:10:24

And. Winning my first major

1:10:26

award and some time. Well these

1:10:28

boots it or deaths. So

1:10:31

hey if your role by come

1:10:33

come and say hello and of

1:10:35

course you'd always drop us a

1:10:37

line at Twist to it.tv That's

1:10:39

T W I S and put

1:10:41

that Tv. We welcome your comments,

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1:10:50

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1:10:52

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1:11:39

Happy Birthday! You're almost as old

1:11:41

as now so. I

1:11:43

love him and. I

1:11:54

said I love and us not into guess an

1:11:57

asylum hundred I'll sell just as on one of

1:11:59

us off on so. The have to have

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I'm giddy up You wouldn't impose. it is

1:12:03

up to the infant and time. The yeah,

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they're on the Us. Is this an eyeball

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