this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
340 points (98.6% liked)

Technology

59135 readers
3376 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] RangerJosie@sffa.community 280 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Step 1. Fire Boeing.

Step 2. Fucking FUND NASA.

Step 3. NASA builds space stuff that works.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 95 points 2 months ago (3 children)

To be fair, some work has always been outsourced.

Like the o rings…

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I like my humor like I like my NASA space vehicles - outsourced to the lowest bidder.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] spacecadet@lemm.ee 27 points 2 months ago

I’ve worked for several aerospace companies including Boeing. I have nothing but contempt and hatred for Boeing and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Management is garbage, safety comes second to schedule, people are treated like disposable cogs, but I would trust Boeing over NASA. I work with a lot of NASA and ex-NASA people right now on a couple major projects. Dear god NASA upper management makes me want to put my head through a wall! The insufferable sense of superiority trying to tell us “how things are done”. Bro, how is SLS coming? That’s what I thought, shut your mouth and stop pretending like you are the Apple of space systems. Luckily, most of the ground level people at NASA are more down to earth (pardon the puns) and easier to work with.

[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 27 points 2 months ago (4 children)

NASA contracting stuff to space X has probably be the most amazing and sound financial decision they have made.

People on this website are so biased because Elon runs it but he genuinely built one of the most amazing companies in the world. Government including the US are miles behind them and struggling to play catch up and they are only trying because Space X has become so much better than them they have to.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 67 points 2 months ago (21 children)

It's arguably not even him that it really running it

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Seems like he's more involved with starship now than falcon or dragon.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (20 replies)
[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

People on this website are so biased because Elon runs it but he genuinely built one of the most amazing companies in the world

Elon didn't build it. They literally have a manager whose entire job is to make sure Elon doesn't get too close to the technical stuff because he'll break it with some random order to change it for no reason

[–] rimmedalpha@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 2 months ago

Ah yes, the CCM: "CEO Childcare Manager"

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

I read quite a bit about how spacex was formed, including the book that obviously will tell the hero tales of Elon. But I've never seen any mention of this and would like to learn more. Would you be able to share a link?

[–] Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (5 children)

It’s not just blind hate for Elon, they’re genuinely terrible stewards of the environment in south Texas. They constantly lie about their intentions and impact to avoid having to take responsibility for anything. Say what you will about how independently they operate from his input, this is definitely a company culture that he cultivates and promotes.

[–] llamacoffee@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823378186836889699

CNBC updated its story yesterday with additional factually inaccurate information.

While there may be a typo in one table of the initial TCEQ's public version of the permit application, the rest of the application and the lab reports clearly states that levels of Mercury found in non-stormwater discharge associated with the water deluge system are well below state and federal water quality criteria (of no higher than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic toxicity), and are, in most instances, non-detectable.

The initial application was updated within 30 days to correct the typo and TCEQ is updating the application to reflect the correction.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Beaver@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 months ago

No it was the engineers not Elon who built Space X up.

[–] mbirth@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Step 4. NASA builds planes that work (on the side).

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

They tried being more actively involved with the Aries I and Aries V rockets, but they got really bogged down to the point where Obama started commercial crew. Aries V eventually evolved into SLS, but with low capability and a very long schedule. And for better or for worse, SLS is getting lots of funding.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Program

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Australis13@fedia.io 95 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The crew should come back on the Dragon and Boeing be required to solve the problems and carry out another test flight. It is unacceptable that Boeing wants to bring the astronauts back without understanding some of the failures on the Starliner.

[–] YourAvgMortal@lemmy.world 38 points 2 months ago

I’m sure they understand the problems, and they understand that solving them would eat into their profits

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Another test flight will be a bit of a problem. There are no spare Atlas V rockets. They will either have to convince Amazon to give up one of theirs or they will have to launch one of the missions on Vulcan Centaur, which is not currently crew rated.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

or they will have to launch one of the missions on Vulcan Centaur, which is not currently crew rated.

That's okay; the next Starliner test flight clearly shouldn't be crew rated either!

[–] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 16 points 2 months ago

This is exactly it for me. A problem is one thing, a problem can be addressed. But a problem whose core cause is not understood can't be quantified or addressed.

So you have a thruster pack that's overheating and they don't even know why, you have helium that's leaking and they don't even know why, so I ask why is it even a question what to do?

I am among other things a private pilot, I fly little propeller airplanes around for fun. Lots of private pilots do stupid stuff, and some get killed as a result. I'm talking for example pilots who want to get back to their home airport, so they fly over five airports that all sell fuel without landing but then run out of gas and crash half a mile from their home airport. So there is a saying, before you do anything risky, consider how stupid you will look in the NTSB report if it doesn't work out. And the pilot who intentionally flew below fuel minimums looks pretty damn stupid, destroyed a $100,000 airplane and lost his life so he could save 20 bucks on cheaper gas.

Point is, the same principle applies to all of the recent space disasters. Challenger was obviously not the right decision to launch. Columbia obviously a serious risk that was ignored. And that brings us to Starliner, we have serious fundamental problems that could definitely lead to a loss of ship and crew situation and we don't even understand what is causing those problems. Now imagine Starliner fails. How stupid will that decision look? Probably even dumber than Columbia or Challenger, because unlike those two disasters we know ahead of time that something is very wrong.

[–] Got_Bent@lemmy.world 45 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

Shitty Boeing aside, how are they eating up there? I don't know anything about space station food logistics, but if a planned week has turned into ten weeks, surely there must be a resource strain.

Edit: Google search says they can regularly send up unmanned supply ships.

[–] model_tar_gz@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Can’t wait to see this project too in Google’s graveyard.

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ah, the old lemmy switcharoo

[–] Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hold my Reddit account I'm going in!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

They eat whichever astronaut dies first.

Just don't question the cause of death, because it will be blunt force trauma

[–] mihnt@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Don't they have their own version of MREs they use for situations like this?

load more comments (5 replies)

they must have a significant food bank supply, including some kind of reserve replacement nutrients in the event shit goes wrong. That or an incredibly redundant delivery network.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] HejMedDig@feddit.dk 43 points 2 months ago (5 children)

In this particular situation, if Boeing says it's safe, I would be inclined to trust them, because if they make the return happen, and it fails, Boeing is done fore. As a crew member though, I would pass for sure and wait for a Dragon

[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 57 points 2 months ago (2 children)

How many people died because boeing made shitty planes and didn’t train their crew properly?

Is boeing done for?

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They get one last chance! If they kill these astronauts this time, we'll be really, really mad like for real!

[–] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 11 points 2 months ago

Don't worry, we have enough tax payer's money to bail them out if anything goes wrong.

/s

[–] HejMedDig@feddit.dk 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think messing up on NASA projects will hurt a company way more. Of course aviation is supposed to be safe, but even the 737 Max has flown thousands of hours. Comparing how many people that have flown on them, versus how many that have been hurt/killed, is still a small number, which is still is supposed to be zero of course.

Traversing space, a pinnacle of engineering, is quite another level of danger, and if you insist on your product being functional and safe, and then kills two astronauts, would cause a whole different level of backlash

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They already couldn't afford this situation, and look where they are.

What's an improbable "acceptable risk" to them may not be good enough for NASA, especially if they don't really understand what's wrong.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The question facing NASA's leadership today? Should the two astronauts return to Earth from the International Space Station in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, with its history of thruster failures and helium leaks, or should they come home on a SpaceX Dragon capsule?

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

The question facing NASA’s leadership today? Should the two astronauts return to Earth...

"Alright, just hear me out..." -Boeing

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 11 points 2 months ago

The lives of two government employees are in the balance, and taxpayers paid Boeing for most of the Starliner spacecraft's development costs.

Money money money...

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 23 points 2 months ago

Three Starliner mission managers had key roles on Columbia's ill-fated final flight.

I was gonna take issue with that statement until i read this. Causality does seem more probable.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Will those Astronauts get overtime pay?

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 36 points 2 months ago

Unfortunately they’ve been moving backwards across the time zones, resulting in them owing NASA money

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago

This is an excellent article. I’m glad they took time to go into the history of these folks.

load more comments
view more: next ›