←back to thread

NASA freezes Starliner missions

(gizmodo.com)
269 points rntn | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 19:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
Show context
tootie ◴[19 Oct 24 14:37 UTC] No.41888007[source]▶
Honestly this feels like an indictment of privatizing space travel. SpaceX is a perfect storm of a benefactor with unbelievable wealth being able to hoard the best engineers money can buy. And now the advancements they've made are proprietary. Ideally Boeing and SpaceX could just collaborate and not have fight each other and waste a load of time and money. If the point is an open, competitive field driving space exploration forward, it seems we don't have that.
replies(9): >>41888052 #>>41888055 #>>41888088 #>>41888267 #>>41888334 #>>41888458 #>>41888856 #>>41890843 #>>41895905 #
1. dbrueck ◴[19 Oct 24 15:45 UTC] No.41888458[source]▶
> Honestly this feels like an indictment of privatizing space travel

NASA has involved the private sector for over half a century. Taking that out of the equation leaves you with SpaceX absolutely killing it and Boeing bumbling along despite getting bigger contracts from the government, so it's hard for me to draw this same conclusion.

> a benefactor with unbelievable wealth being able to hoard the best engineers

Hmm.. the implication here doesn't ring true at all. "Oh how I wish I could work at Boeing where all the real innovation happens, but here I am stuck at SpaceX due to these darn golden handcuffs". I hope SpaceX people get paid a lot, but I suspect the draw for most is what they are doing and the speed at which they are doing it.