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NASA freezes Starliner missions

(gizmodo.com)
269 points rntn | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 19:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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dgrin91 ◴[19 Oct 24 14:40 UTC] No.41888020[source]▶
I wonder if Boeing will cancel starliner since they already lost 1B+ and won't have a chance to earn on it for a while
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Tuna-Fish ◴[19 Oct 24 18:28 UTC] No.41889598[source]▶
The contract is set up in such a way that there was initially some development money (that wasn't actually enough to cover development), but the bulk of the payments in the contract come from flying the actual operational missions, which Boeing is yet to fly any of.

The neat part from government perspective is that it doesn't matter how much Boeing has already lost on the contract, whether it makes sense for them to go on depends strictly on whether they believe they can fly the remaining contracted-for flights for less than the payouts. And this is probably still true. Yes, they will lose money overall on the contract, but they will lose less money if they complete it.

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1. mjevans ◴[19 Oct 24 20:18 UTC] No.41890457[source]▶
I wonder how expensive a proper thruster redesign will be though? The lose less money depends on as is rather than as correctly designed and validated which they're at the very expensive last few percent to reach.