Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2x3nlxg9jo

NASA has labelled the botched 2024 Starliner mission, which left two astronauts stranded in space for months, a "Type A" mishap, on par with fatal shuttle disasters of the past, in a newly published report.

The category is the space agency's most severe, reserved for incidents causing more than $2m (£1.49 m) in damage, the loss of a vehicle or its control, or deaths.

On Thursday, Nasa's new boss, Jared Isaacman, blasted Boeing, which built Starliner, and the space agency for poor decision-making and leadership that led to the failed mission.

Classic Boeing.

And NASA. They never should have accepted it nor sent astronauts on it.

If it's Boeing...I ain't Going.

"Why don't we just let private companies develop spacecraft instead of wasting money on NASA?"

This. This is why.

I wouldn't trust the new Trump-appointed management, under a man who's apparently a buddy of Elon Musk, head of a private company directly competing for government space contracts, to fix anything.

I'm not sure you understand who makes spacecraft that NASA uses in the past or present. There are not "NASA [built]" spacecraft.

• Orion is built by a private company Lockheed Martin
• The Space Shuttle was built by a private company, Rockwell International, which is now Boeing
• Apollo command module was built by a private company North American Aviation (which was acquired by Rockwell, which is now Boeing)
• The Lunar Lander was built by a private company Grumman Aerospace Corporation, which today is part of Northrop Grumman.

The difference between what you're calling "private company spacecraft" and "NASA [built]" is just contract terms used on how to pay for it.

You're also leaving out how (fuck Musk) SpaceX Dragon is also a private company spacecraft and has been wildly successful and saving billions of dollars of tax payer money over running the Space Shuttle in its place.

All valid points, and yes SpaceX is a demonstration of how privatization can be more innovative. The challenge is that the counterpoint of Boeing culture change causing things like the Starliner is about as valid when regulatory capture happens.

I'm not saying nationalizing companies would help, but a government with good oversight (which is more and more of a question under Trump) could also help.

I'm not NASA or BOEING, but I'm going to imagine that before, Nasa would be calling the shots, essentially designing the craft, and overseeing (as in breathing down their necks) what contractors built. Now NASA goes "I want a thingy that goes up" and the contractor makes the decisions, cuts the corners it wants, and creates mind boggling cost overruns.

Oh, BTW, NASA ( and NACA before) has historically been THE aeronautical reference research body in the west. Maybe they didn't actually rivet the aluminum sheets, but they intimately knew what was going on.

The dude leading NASA "blasted" Boeing, eh? How did we allow this word to be used for like, the majority of headlines? It's such a cringey verb.

I’m not NASA or BOEING, but I’m going to imagine that before, Nasa would be calling the shots, essentially designing the craft, and overseeing (as in breathing down their necks) what contractors built.

You're exactly RIGHT on this part. This, in the industry, is called a "cost plus" contract. What this means is that NASA can ask for whatever they want no matter how outlandish and the aerospace contractor (such as Boeing in for Space Shuttle) will build it for them. NASA is bill for all of the actual costs of the design and construction PLUS a set percentage which is pure profit for the contractor. Aerospace contractors LOVE "cost plus"!

What frequently happens with big space projects like this is that design objectives change or material limitations are uncovered during construction over the years. NASA may start by saying "we want this to carry 10 Astronauts". Contractor designs and starts building the main vehicle. Then during a unit test, they find the G forces produced on the angle of the seats is too high for safety, so the angle needs to be changed. All the money spent designing and building the old seats NASA still has to pay, and the contractor still gets their fixed Plus profit. The new design and construction of the safe seats are ALSO paid by NASA as well as a Plus profit for the new seats.

Now NASA goes “I want a thingy that goes up” and the contractor makes the decisions, cuts the corners it wants, and creates mind boggling cost overruns.

You're exactly WRONG on this part.

Now what was used for private spaceflight companies (SpaceX cargo, Northrop cargo, SpaceX crew, Boeing Crew) is called "fixed price contracts".

Ideally, NASA writes out the specs of the vehicle they want to exist. The aerospace contractor looks at the specs, determines how much money they would need to design, build, and profit from the exercise and gives NASA a fixed price. They compete with other contractors bidding on the same work. The Commercial Crew program had 3 bidding contractors, Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Space. NASA looks at the general designs, considers the contractors, and makes their choice. This is the end of how theory matches reality.

In reality, some of the same problems found during construction come up, or NASA changes their mind halfway through the construction. NASA originally wanted the crew vehicles to carry 6 Astronauts. However during landing tests, they found the G forces were higher than they liked on the humans. To lower the G forces, they had to lean the seats back at a less steep angle. However this means that they now can't fit 6 seats in, but only 4. In a "cost plus" contract this would be business as usually, and the contractor would simply carry on charging NASA more money, but this is supposed to be Fixed Price. But the contractors didn't sign up for 4 seats in the contract, and they've already done a lot of work they won't be paid for, so contractors reasonably pushed back saying "no we're not going to work for free. We built what you asked. Now you say you want something different. You want a change, pay us.". NASA agree, and there were some additional payments made to the contractors.

So "Fixed Price" isn't exactly fixed price when NASA changes the specs halfway through. Even with ALL of these challenges, Fixed price SpaceX and Northrop commercial cargo and SpaceX commercial crew have been HUGE cost savings over the old "cost plus" model.

The problem with Starliner is that NASA kept paying Boeing for milestone completion when Boeing didn't complete the milestones.

If you want to see how much, check out the costs of the most recent "cost plus" human space vehicle Lockeheed Orion capsule. Your eyes will pop out of your heat.

Thank you for posting this. Even the Saturn V was built in part by Boeing.

The more important issue here is Boeing execs should be held accountable for destroying the company. If a big war pops off and we need Boeing to deliver something they probably fucking won’t be able to. It’s literally a national security issue and their board should be tried for treason.

The challenge is that the counterpoint of Boeing culture change causing things like the Starliner is about as valid when regulatory capture happens.

We'll its not "regulatory capture" because we're not talking about regulatory agencies, but you're right if you're talking corporate capture.

I know its going to sound counter-intuitive, but Starliner was actually necessary to break corporate capture.

The entrenched interests in Aerospace as well as Congress had almost no desire to change. Aerospace loved their "cost plus" infinite money printing machines paid for by government dollars. Contractors had zero concern for cost overruns/ballooning costs. Congress got to land Aerospace jobs in their districts. NASA got working but VERY EXPENSIVE space vehicles every 10-20 years. Fat cats on all sides were very very happy with this arrangement.

A very small set of politicians concerned about costs (and likely some campaign contributions) along with NASA wanted much cheaper vehicles then they were getting at that time. So they got a proposal to have private companies bid for fixed price contracts for space cargo flights. "UPS for space shipments" essentially. It worked. Law passed It was cheap. It was reliable.

So then with the success of private cargo, questions were raise why we were spending orders of magnitude more on human flights to the International Space Station? There was much clutching of pearls about these new hotshot private space companies and if they could handle human spaceflight. Somehow Boeing, the trusted legacy maker of the Space Shuttle and Apollo, was convinced to bid on human private spaceflight. There was now a company Congress would be confident would deliver a working solution, and they still got to tell their districts they were bringing pork jobs. Those other untrustworthy "newspace" companies could fail, and Boeing would still deliver human spaceflight as they had for decades.

We know now how wrong that was, but without that as a possible future, no human private spaceflight would have happened. If it had just been newspace companies like SpaceX and Sierra Space, Congress never would have passed the legislation to allow Commercial Crew to happen.

So you can see that Starliner needed to exist to break the corporate capture. That had to existed for use to break the corporate capture model that plagued human spaceflight.

I’m not saying nationalizing companies would help, but a government with good oversight (which is more and more of a question under Trump) could also help.

I don't have much faith in that idea. Look at what NASA was before private spaceflight. I love them for other reasons, but look at what ESA (European Space Agency) is today. Safran is a company that is the Boeing to ESA with all the same problems of Boeing for NASA.

So what has Boeing been successful with in the past few years:

• Starliner failure
• 737-MAX8 issues (MCAS and door plug)
• 777X still can’t get certified due to multiple issues
• 737-MAX7/10 still aren’t certified
• 787 battery fire issues

You forgot the 2023 near catastophic incidents with smoke in the cockpit after bird strikes:
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20250618.aspx

Don't forget the murder of a whistleblower in public in broad daylight

I mean that may fall under “successful” from their POV

This right here is why I don't think Artemis is feasible or even a good idea.

The only "upgrade" is that it's primarily Lockheed and not Boeing, but I wouldn't trust anything that was designed by them after they finished the F-22 in the 90s.

Nope, don't trust him at all, he's absolutely just throwing the competition under the bus to funnel more profits to his owners. He's right by accident. making the right decision (in this case) for the wrong reasons (in every future case).

This is rocket science - the $2m threshold seems low

shuttle program simply moved to the military nowadays :/

I think we're aligned on the core issue but with nuanced perspectives. Regulatory capture is indeed the established academic term for the phenomenon you describe, precisely capturing how agencies meant to protect public interest end up advancing industry priorities through mechanisms like the revolving doorbetween Boeing and Congress.

Where I'd argue the Starliner narrative: While Boeing's participation provided political cover for Commercial Crew legislation, SpaceX's 2010 Falcon 9 debut and subsequent rapid repeatability fundamentally reset industry expectations. The success of fixed-price cargo contracts demonstrated reusable rockets and rapid iteration were possible, proving cost-plus models weren't inevitable. This technological inflection point--not Boeing's involvement--created the political space for NASA to demand accountability in human spaceflight.

Boeing's Starliner struggles directly stem from its post-1997 merger culture shift, where McDonnell Douglas' profit-focused management supplanted engineering excellence. This same culture produced both the 737 MAX flaws and Starliner's valve failures, showing how regulatory capture enabled systemic safety failures when oversight bodies delegated excessive authority to Boeing.

The breakthrough came not from Boeing's inclusion but from SpaceX proving fixed-price development could work, breaking the cost-plus mentality that had entrenched inefficiency for decades. Had Commercial Crew relied solely on legacy contractors, the same capture cycle would likely have persisted. SpaceX's existence changed the incentive structure, not Boeing's participation

I think we’re aligned on the core issue but with nuanced perspectives. Regulatory capture is indeed the established academic term for the phenomenon you describe,

Its close, but I don't think that's correct for this situation.

precisely capturing how agencies meant to protect public interest end up advancing industry priorities through mechanisms like the revolving doorbetween Boeing and Congress.

You're missing one key aspect of the definition of regulatory capture. NASA isn't a regulatory body in the case with Boeing, its the customer.

For it to be regulator capture NASA would have to be acting as a regulatory body, and the corrupt company would have to have influence over policy that they benefit from outside of the regulator. An example of regulatory capture was what lead up to one aspect of the 2008 Financial Crisis. Banks have to have a US government regulatory that sets policy and policies the actions of the bank. Prior to 2008 banks could choose their regulator which their choices between the FDIC, Federal Reserve, or a little known regulator call Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). It won't surprise you to find out that the OTS was a tiny little shop which only had a few employees, and banks figured out they could write their own policy, get the OTS to approve it, and get away with actions the banks would normally be barred from doing. This lead to risky bank behavior, and the failure of banks and a large contributor to the Financial Crisis of 2008.

NASA wasn't acting as a regulator to Boeing for Starliner. NASA wasn't setting government regulations which Boeing had to follow for all vehicles Boeing produced for spaceflight. NASA was a customer giving specs to its contractor, but the contractor had corporate power over its customer, NASA. So yes this would be something like corporate capture but it wasn't regulatory capture.

Where I’d argue the Starliner narrative: While Boeing’s participation provided political cover for Commercial Crew legislation,

We agree with this. This was my whole thesis in my original post.

SpaceX’s 2010 Falcon 9 debut and subsequent rapid repeatability fundamentally reset industry expectations.

Not really. It wasn't SpaceX alone, and it wasn't because SpaceX as rapid. It was because it was it was cheap. SpaceX wasn't alone in this though. The other contract winner of Commercial Cargo contract, Orbital Sciences, was also cheap and had nothing to do with rapid repeatability. Both were, however, cheap, compared to the cost-plus contract providers that came before them.

The success of fixed-price cargo contracts demonstrated reusable rockets and rapid iteration were possible, proving cost-plus models weren’t inevitable. This technological inflection point–not Boeing’s involvement–created the political space for NASA to demand accountability in human spaceflight.

I disagree entirely. SpaceX reusabilty had zero impact on the success of the initial Commercial Cargo or Commercial Crew contract adoption. How do we know this? Four ways:

1. When SpaceX started flying cargo, reusuabilty wasn't even a thing yet on Falcon 9. Reusability arrived later during the contract, but the fixed price contracts had already been signed and SpaceX received no extra money from the contract derived from reusability.

2. SpaceX wasn't the only provider of Commercial Cargo. The other was Orbital Sciences (later OrbitalATK, later yet Northrop Grumman) with their completely disposable rocket and cargo module (Cygnus). Again, when Orbital signed their contract for Commercial Cargo the prices were set. Whether Orbital threw away their Antares rocket after launch (which they did) or not, had no bearing on the Commercial Cargo contracts.

3. No part of Starliner was reusable at the time of contact signing for Commercial Crew. Not the core stage, not the second stage, not the SRBs, not the crew vehicle. If reusabilty was so much of a factor for Commercial Crew how did Boeing, that had zero usability, not only win a Commercial Crew contract, but also was the highest paid of the two contact winners?

4. If reusabilty was such an important factor in Commercial Crew selection, why was Boeing, with zero reusabilty, chosen, but not Sierra Nevada Corporation's (today known as Sierra Space) Dreamchaser vehicle NOT chose when it was a reusable crew vehicle from day 1?

Boeing’s Starliner struggles directly stem from its post-1997 merger culture shift,

We agree on all the reasons Boeing sucks today.

The breakthrough came not from Boeing’s inclusion but from SpaceX proving fixed-price development could work

That simply isn't true. Again, SpaceX wasn't the only Fixed Price space contractor. Orbital Sciences was too. Also, I remember pieces quotes from government hearings where SpaceX was criticized as not being up-to-the-task of handling human flight and that only a company with experience like Boeing would be able to deliver, and without a "sure thing" delivery contractor extending the concept of Fixed Price contracts from Commercial Cargo to Commercial Crew shouldn't move forward unless a trusted company like Boeing was involved in Commercial Crew. This was also why Boeing was paid so much more than SpaceX for far fewer flights in the contract language.