I have serious doubts whether Starliner will ever carry crew again.
It’s just not needed at this point. Fly them as cargo to ‘fulfill’ obligations, and fly a few more Dragons.
And despite the use of Starliner in promotional material for various commercial space stations, it seems even more unlikely that Starliner will ever fly for a commercial customer:
It’s price would likely be unreasonable in comparison to the competition,
Crews would likely prefer the more reliable and proven Dragon,
There won’t be any boosters available to launch it (Atlas V out of production and all boosters spoken for), No-one is likely to want to eat the cost of certifying it on another booster option,
BO and RL crew capsules might be available sooner (I jest… a little).
Starliner carries the added expense of needing to cross-train crews on Dragon for the return flight. ^_^
If it was the only capsule program going, I could see it getting through its teething problems, similar to Apollo. But at this point I just don’t see it ever becoming a workhorse, which is what it would need to do to get past its bad reputation.
My gut impression is that it was designed under the helm of an engineering B team who lacked clarity and got lost in the weeds on many points. Fixing its problems is merely patching over those fundamental missteps and oversights and hoping there’s not more problems lurking underneath.
The article makes it sound like each day it takes until Starship can fly a crew is another day Starliner lives on.
Would this make Starliner the first capsule to actually outlive its launcher?
I have serious doubts whether Starliner will ever carry crew again.
It’s just not needed at this point. Fly them as cargo to ‘fulfill’ obligations, and fly a few more Dragons.
And despite the use of Starliner in promotional material for various commercial space stations, it seems even more unlikely that Starliner will ever fly for a commercial customer:
It’s price would likely be unreasonable in comparison to the competition,
Crews would likely prefer the more reliable and proven Dragon,
There won’t be any boosters available to launch it (Atlas V out of production and all boosters spoken for), No-one is likely to want to eat the cost of certifying it on another booster option,
BO and RL crew capsules might be available sooner (I jest… a little).
Starliner carries the added expense of needing to cross-train crews on Dragon for the return flight. ^_^
If it was the only capsule program going, I could see it getting through its teething problems, similar to Apollo. But at this point I just don’t see it ever becoming a workhorse, which is what it would need to do to get past its bad reputation.
My gut impression is that it was designed under the helm of an engineering B team who lacked clarity and got lost in the weeds on many points. Fixing its problems is merely patching over those fundamental missteps and oversights and hoping there’s not more problems lurking underneath.