Starliner Post Mortem - I'm Not Dead Yet...

Early in commercial crew, Boeing and SpaceX were locked in a race to get the first crewed flight to ISS.
But it turns out there was never really a race. What happened with Starliner?
@Eager_Space on Twitter
Triabolical_ on Reddit
/ eagernetwork
/ eager-space-1038430522...

[@Freak80MC]

I think at the end of the day, Boeing was complacent and didn't see Starliner as a priority, whereas SpaceX definitely saw Dragon as a priority. That in itself provided them all the motivation they needed to try to work through the project as fast as they could reasonably do so vs Boeing sitting around, and too, probably thinking SpaceX would fail since it was the "new company" and that provided even less incentive towards Boeing for completing Starliner in a timely manner.

[@wrightmf]

You mentioned Boeing doesn't see it as priority but SpaceX does. I haven't worked for Boeing or SpaceX but I wonder if Boeing bureaucracy makes it difficult for the worker bees to do simple stuff. Example a Boeing tech wanting to order RS485 to USB converters for test development rig but has get all sorts of approval signatures where at SpaceX they just go ahead and buy the converters. Boeing focuses on reducing costs and not spend money on "frivolous expenses" where SpaceX sees the biggest cost is time wasted (if you blow a month of schedule you can't get it back but can always get more money).

[@timestampterrysassistant7638]

I just hope corporate greed doesn’t get some astronauts smoked 🙏💀

[@FourthRoot]

How would they profit from that?

[@FourthRoot]

Nasa has already killed 17 astronauts on their own vehicles by cutting corners.

[@xeniko1226]

Yeah corporate greed. I think politicians forcing the Columbia to go up is a similiar thing. Or how about the astronaut who was forced to go up in a botched spacecraft, the SOYUZ-1 to save his friend because his friend was meant to go? He wasn’t too happy about that. He actually had an open casket funeral to force the ones who made the decision to see what they had done to him. It’s on the internet for the world to see. That dude is a legend but man does that scare the ever living **** out of me. These astronauts don’t know politics yet their lives are dictated on these small decisions.

[@EagerSpace]

Corporations have very powerful incentives not to kill their customers as it's bad for business... NASA doesn't have those incentives and has been quite cavalier in risk astronauts. My video "your gonna kill astronauts" talks about this in more detail.

[@timestampterrysassistant7638]

@@EagerSpace The Land of Math scares me 😱

[@richardzeitz54]

Thanks for the thoughtful, well paced video. It's so refreshing to see straightforward material without pointless music, transitions, CGI, and narrators with forced enthusiasm. This was so relaxing AND informative. Good work! I've subscribed to your channel because of all those qualities.

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks.

[@kittyyuki1537]

As a side point, I am really glad that the return of American Crew Launch capability wasn't a downgrade but a side-grade instead from the Space Shuttle to the Falcon 9-Crew Dragon. The Space Transportation System and Falcon 9-B5/Crew Dragon System are both partially reusable launch systems; Just completely different approaches that both achieves launch vehicle reusability (albeit the latter approach was leagues more cost-effective). It would be a downer for me if the comeback of American Crew Launch capability was a downgrade with the expendable Atlas V.

[@williamgreene4834]

It wasn't a side-grade for the two lost shuttle crews. Dragon is much safer.

[@plainText384]

It was a huge downgrade in capability. From Payload, to Crew capacity, to habitable volume, to crossrange, to the ability to return to runways and perform low g reentries, the Space Shuttle was a LOT more capable than F9/Dragon. Even in terms of reusability, the shuttle reused all engines, expending only the droptanks, while F9 discards the entire upper stage and Dragon discards the trunk. Ultimately, a less capable, cheaper and safer vehicle was exactly what NASA was looking for, so the downgrade isn't a big deal. But it's still a downgrade.

[@kittyyuki1537]

@@plainText384 Of course! the downgrade I was mentioning right at the end was go from a partially reusable system (which both Shuttle and F9 are just in varying degrees more or less) to an expendable system (Atlas V), no doubt that the Shuttle is more capable than Dragon other than safety and cost.

[@carcinogen60yearsago]

​@plainText384 But you're missing the main point. The space shuttle wasn't a good, ferry vehicle, It could only stay in orbit 18 days max docked or not. It didn't matter. The hydrogen fuel cells would boil off.

[@michaeldemarco9950]

@@carcinogen60yearsago , truth is, we needed both at the same time; a large reusable Space Truck, and a small personnel transporter. Of course I still believe, with the proper manning, ground support and infrastructure, SLS could be just as viable as STS at developing LEO.

[@williamgreene4834]

SpaceX is flying the second starship ( the largest most powerful rocket to ever fly ) in a couple days. They use the same flight computers and avionics as the Falcon 9. They also are using Tesla drive motors and gearboxes to drive the aero-surfaces. New high speed electric thrust vector controls on the engines instead of hydraulics, etc, etc. They think very far out of the box and off the shelf. They have also landed 170ish consecutive Falcon 9 boosters without a mishap. The Europa Clipper people said they were super happy to be getting to re-use the boosters that just flew the Psyche mission. Those are both top tier missions. How things have changed. Everything they do and the way they do it is better. Look at a vid. of a Boeing control room and you will see grey haired old men. You would think old experienced men would be better but it's not when you are at the leading edge of things. Young people have crazy new ideas and can usually make them work. I may have veered off on a tangent but I'm a fan ( grey haired old man ) boy.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

They use the same computers and avionics? Says who?

[@williamgreene4834]

Obviously the software/ programming is completely different. It's an educated guess that they would use the same computer. The avionics, accelerometers, gps and other systems would be identical. The input from them to the computer is interpreted by the software. Why wouldn't they use a proven system? The laws of physics don't change. @@TheEvilmooseofdoom

[@plainText384]

@@williamgreene4834 Why would they use the same hardware? I doubt Starship and F9 have the same amount of sensors and actuators. I mean the booster has like 3.6x as many engines and the upper stage has 6x the amount of engines and additional aerodynamic control surfaces. At the very least I'd expect them to require a significantly different amount of IO-channels and computing power. And that's before we get into the fact that some Starship variants will be designed for long duration deep space missions. It's an entirely different vehicle with entirely different design requirements.

[@williamgreene4834]

Spacecraft like Falcon 9 and dragon use x86 cpus in their computers, that run on C++. These slow cpus are capable of running everything and are more resistant to cosmic ray hits. They are triple redundant and vote before each command is given to the engines etc. Engines and other systems have their own control computers on them so having more doesn't tax the flight computers as much as you think. This is an argument I obviously can't win so have a nice day. :) @@plainText384

[@AmericanCrusader222]

Dude this was spot on.

[@davidk1308]

Dream Chaser going up to the ISS soon for cargo missions probably isn't going to help with scheduling. And Vulcan needs to become crew rated if they want Starliner to fly beyond ISS. I don't think either of those are significant enough to pose a problem to Boeing, but it is a couple more things to add to the pile. Will you do a video on Stoke, or do you want to see more work come out of them first? It's a pretty interesting company, and they have one of the only rockets in development really taking the potential success of Starship and full reusability seriously, so they're worth a look at I think.

[@donjones4719]

Yes, *somebody* has to pay to get Vulcan crew-rated. ULA said years ago that they built it to be human rated but it isn't actually human rated - there's apparently an expensive difference. ULA also said they have no intention of paying for that out of their own pocket. Whatever customer wants to launch crew on Vulcan will have to pay for it. The bottom line is NASA will have to pay - it'll be included in the price of a crewed Dream Chaser contract or a contract to send Starliner to commercial space stations. Everything about the commercial stations will be overwhelmingly paid for by NASA. Blue Origin plans for New Glenn to be human rated, for whatever spacecraft wants to use it. If that actually happens before we run out of Atlas Vs then Vulcan may end up not human rated at all, although my money is on Vulcan.

[@EagerSpace]

My *guess* is that Starliner gets higher priority than dream chaser as NASA needs a second supplier for crew and doesn't really need a second supplier for cargo, but cargo visits are simpler than crew visits so who knows on that one... Stoke is on my list of topics. The problem I'm having is that they don't give out much technical information and that makes it really hard to evaluate their approach. I'm pretty sure what they are trying to do is possible, but I want to know if its practical and without more engine data that's hard to do.

[@akwakatsaka1826]

Go SpaceX !!!🎉

[@donjones4719]

A pre-emptive comment: There has been a lot of criticism over Boeing being awarded so much more than SpaceX, 4.2B vs 2.6B. It's not as bad as it looks for Boeing. Each contract includes the cost of the rocket launches. At the time the contract was awarded SpaceX had to use a new rocket for every flight. So did Boeing, of course, since they're using the expendable Atlas V. But SpaceX can amortize the cost of the rocket over several subsequent non-crewed flights. SpaceX's Falcon 9 also cost less to build due to both its fabrication method and the engines being built by them. The Atlas V uses engines from a separate company, which drives up its price. Even if Starliner cost the same as Dragon 2 to design and build Boeing would still have to charge more. Another difference is that SpaceX was already flying the Cargo Dragon to the ISS. Crew Dragon is much, much more than an upgrade of Cargo Dragon but it does use the Draco thrusters and the same type of heat shield. Fabrication techniques had been learned, a lot of tooling was in place. Boeing didn't have this. SpaceX is vertically integrated and builds all of the thrusters on Crew Dragon. Boeing bought thrusters from three different companies - which got their mark-ups. That being said, aside from the rocket, many of the cost differences *are* Boeing's fault for having structured themselves to outsource many components for everything they build. That's a built in handicap. SpaceX is the superior provider because the way the company is structured and run is much more efficient.

[@Freak80MC]

A lot of that is obvious in hindsight, but still, the prevailing opinion seemed to be "Oh, Boeing is the experienced legacy company, so they will definitely beat SpaceX and by a mile!". Yet here we are. At this point I think it's pretty clear that legacy experience of a company doesn't matter as much as people think, especially as companies age and restructure, and people retire. Companies gain their experience from the people working there, they aren't magical repositories of knowledge and experience on their own. I think if anything, we should remember that one day, SpaceX too will become the "proven, legacy company with tons of experience" and the argument would still hold true. That that experience doesn't matter, what matters is if they continue to keep a steady stream of talented people working there and keep a company culture and structure that doesn't stifle innovation and talent. I hope SpaceX's leadership doesn't become complacent in the future.

[@aldenconsolver3428]

I am still going to accuse Boeing of low balling the contract. For all of the contracts that the military have cancelled still the companies have not been allowed to suffer, political influence is still much to important to be discarded in our thoughts. If the providers are allowed to systematically over promise and under deliver you will build a culture based on that pricing model. The outsourcing model that Boeing uses is clearly a useful one politically. Large political contributions have been made and people have been hired. Once this has been done even 100% cost overruns are acceptable and the actual delivery of any product is not as important as continuing the program.

[@donjones4719]

@@aldenconsolver3428 Yes, I have no doubt Boeing put in that bid number because they figured they couldn't lose money anyway, that fixed-price didn't really mean fixed-price. Once the government got locked into building Starliner (with Dragon presumably running into various rookie problems) they'd have no choice but to continue to fund it, the need for a US ride to the ISS was too pressing. That certainly is part of their culture. I address the political aspect of their outsourcing in my other main comment here, under 'Fun fact about "Capture the Flag" '.

[@EagerSpace]

Agreed... I originally had a section on this position but it didn't really fit... NASA wanted two contractors and when you do open bids and choose two, you will *always* get one bid that is higher and one bid that is lower, and given the companies that were chosen, it's very little surprise that it came out the way it did.

[@RuralJuror420]

Can we do a post mortum post mortum?

[@EagerSpace]

I've been thinking about that question, but my decision so far is that the starliner analysis market is saturated. But it's not the only Boeing space project...

[@Eoin999]

@@EagerSpace_dun dun dun_ *SLS*

[@mobeus5019]

Anyone who buys a boeing product and expects it to work, be on budget and on time, or be safe are purely delusional. Max8. 787. GMD. SLS. Starliner. Kc46. I feel terrified for the pilots of the new boeing trainer for the USAF. And the fact they have the gall to say they need more money and can't operate under a fixed price contract? Maybe your CEO needs some severe pay cuts, and your proposal writers need to come back to reality.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

It is sad, it wasn't always that way.

[@LeonelEBD]

Wish this works, using the Atlas as a launch vehicle against is somewhat attractive (even if its far from the old Atlas) but the constant setbacks and crazy management just . . . Well, again, hope this works.

[@mattkerle81]

Always great videos, thanks!

[@mrzoinky5999]

Scheduling seems silly if you don't have a vehicle ready to go - unless you are telling me that they have a vehicle ready to go, for a couple of years now, but because of scheduling they just haven't had a chance .... pretty sure that's not the case.

[@EagerSpace]

The point of scheduling isn't that they've been ready and couldn't go, it's that there are no small slips for them when trying to get a flight time to ISS.

[@PetesGuide]

What consolation prize does Boeing get to take back from the ISS? And will it survive reentry? If it’s a flag, whose flag would it be?😑

[@nolsp7240]

As I write this Starliner is currently docked at ISSvwith several reported helium leaks. Assuming the astronauts are able to return safely with no additional problems, do you think Starliner will get certified as crew-rated?

[@EagerSpace]

I think yes, but it all hinges on whether Boeing can figure out what is actually wrong with the system and come up with a good fix. Given that the problem hardware burns up on re-entry in the service module, they'll need to depend on the data they gather on orbit. Others have said that the next two crew flights are probably on dragon, and that seems like a reasonable time to me.

[@PetesGuide]

At 6:07 could it be that Boeing is delaying the return of Starliner because if it doesn’t go smoothly, NASA will not be contracturaly obligated to pay Boeing because they didn’t complete that milestone in an acceptable manner? Does the contract say anything about the timeline of how they must perform well during any particular flight? Are those sections or clauses being renegotiated during the first crewed flight that remains stranded when I’m writing this?

[@EagerSpace]

Both the commercial crew contracts are milestone based - you get paid for reaching those milestones. That's why Boeing is held on; they can bring in more than $2 billion in revenue if they can fly all 6 operational flights. There are standards for each of the milestones; I've seen the high-level contract but IIRC the details weren't there or they were redacted.

[@PetesGuide]

@@EagerSpace So can you estimate or extrapolate the dollars involved in this first crewed test milestone payment? And in particular, how much money do you think NASA is spending in order that they can pay Boeing the full contract allowance? P.S. My main mentor was a nuclear physicist and EE who had design oversight over all Apollo electronics (BellComm), and did one or two other interesting things for the program, so I have a personal interest in a quality result of the program, and your continued amazingly insightful videos. P.P.S. What do you think the chances are that Boeing is delaying the return because they have concerns as to something unrelated to helium leaks or RCS thrusters? Like, oh, I don’t know, parachute riser attachments?

[@EagerSpace]

The payment for the first crewed test is redacted and I haven't seen any leaks of that amount. I expect it to be substantial because it was originally the hard endpoint for the contract. If I had to guess is say $250-500 million. Then NASA smartly ordered the full six operational missions, which hung a big carrot in front of Boeing. NASA overhead is considerable, but I don't have a number in mind. I didn't think there are other issues.

[@Zorba-Ivy]

It would be cool to see what you think about the starship mission architecture? I was initially quite fond of the design but I'm starting to feel that it is inefficient. I cant justify going into too much detail but there were 3 main points i had: 1. Feasibility of refueling in lunar orbit (how many launches to refuel starship) 2. Design practicality opposed to other more specialized designs (for artemis) 3. I forget my calculations but a mars lander with a 'mother ship' orbiting mars could be massively lighter and simpler than starship. I suppose the main counter argument is that at the end of the day some degree of 'idealness' will be sacrificed for cost. The starship is a jack of all trades but master of none. Not the perfect mars lander or moon lander but it can do both.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

Its job, primary job, is cheap heavy ground to orbit. If they can master refueling it opens a LOT of doors for them and gives them a great deal of flexibility and the ability to do the job that would normally require more expensive and longer development lead times of specialized hardware.

[@donjones4719]

Refueling in lunar orbit is definitely a problem to be dealt with. Several tankers need to be sent from LEO and each of them will require a set of tanker launches to fill them before departing LEO. SpaceX's aim is to make Starship launches easy and cheap and quickly repeatable, they've pinned their whole concept on that. Fortunately it takes relatively little propellant to land/takeoff from the Moon so a full load needn't be sent. The first few Artemis missions will ignore all this by not reusing the Starship HLS. It moves the program along more quickly. The HLS competition specs required the basic design to be capable of iterating to reuse quickly but didn't require it for at least the first two missions. This makes sense in another way - by the time the demo landing and Artemis II and IV missions are done ways to improve the overall design will have been discovered thru that experience. As for specialized designs for Artemis: IMHO the ideal Artemis program will use a standard Starship to replace SLS/Orion on its leg of the mission. The HLS version will remain, optimized for landing on the Moon. Eric has shown a Starship with a just a crew and a reduced payload can go LEO-NRHO-LEO without needing to refuel in NRHO. That eliminates a critical failure point at the Moon and eliminates a set of tanker flights. Check out another Eager Space video, "Commercial Moon" for details on this and other options. All are explored with Eric's typical thoroughness. Skip to Options 4 & 5 for this.

[@Zorba-Ivy]

@@donjones4719 what I had figured is that a more specialized design would need fewer refuels for reuse or even tli. The problem with starship going to the moon is that it's a mars rocket. It has high delta v which means high fuel volume which means high tank mass. A lower delta v craft designed bottom up for vacuum only operation could have a vastly lower empty weight, decreasing the gross weight needed - thus decreasing the number of refuels needed for reuse. SpaceX is looking for complete reusability and rabid turnaround but is that a good enough excuse for having something way to massive for the job? Also as a slight tangent, is the hls starship going to be made of stainless steel as well? Does stainless steel construction enable less material to be used or is it purely a cost saving decision?

[@donjones4719]

@@Zorba-Ivy Stainless steel was chosen because it handles the temperature extremes of cryogenic fuels and atmospheric reentry. This particular alloy actually gets stronger at cryogenic temperatures.The mass of the steel can soak up heat and withstand a higher temperature without softening or even burning up like the aluminum that underlay the Shuttle's tiles. This means the TPS tiles don't have to do as much work or be perfect. Steel was also chosen over carbon composite because a design can be rabidly iterated, as we've seen. A carbon tank or section needs the creation of an expensive mold or mandrel. Carbon composites also need a lot of ~perfect TPS protection. One reason the HLS is based so closely on the basic Starship design is indeed for cost savings. Only a few will be built compared to the orbital ships and Mars ships so it's not worth developing a very different design. The BO HLS will be built for the Moon and only the Moon. The cost of development will be amortized over just a handful of ships.

[@EagerSpace]

One of the main problems with space is all of these super-specialized and super-optimized machines that you use once and throw away - you are never going to get to something that is cheap because you are doing so much custom work every time. Starship takes what I would call a "platform" approach. Manufacturers of cars and trucks build platforms with the frame and powertrain and then build multiple vehicles on top of those platforms to meet the needs of different segments. The resulting vehicle is slightly less optimized but its much cheaper than doing fully customized versions. I think if you focus on *cost* rather than complexity the starship architecture makes a lot more sense. Yes, it's comically big as a moon lander, but an optimized moon lander is ridiculously expensive because the HLS architecture requires very high delta v. Starship gets there with brute force, but cheap brute force.

[@2150dalek]

Boeing isn't the same geniuses with slide rules. It looks like a company with rotating staff & indecisive management. I'll bet morale is piss poor unlike SpaceX , Sierra Space where we see employees punching the air on every launch.

[@peterfireflylund]

And I bet they do really well on diversity and inclusion.

[@PetesGuide]

One thing I’ve not seen anyone on KZbin cover: can a Starliner dock with a Dragon or Soyuz? What if Butch and Sonny undock, move away from the station, and then enough thrusters fail that they can’t get back and can’t get into deorbit attitude? Could another capsule up there come rescue them without having to do an EVA in non-EVA rated (or capable?) suits?

[@EagerSpace]

The NASA reference for the international docking adapter specifically talks about two spacecraft docking with each other, so I suspect the answer is that Dragon could dock with Starliner. Neither can dock with Soyuz as that uses the russian docking standard.

[@PetesGuide]

@@EagerSpace Thanks! I knew there were passive and active sides, and that it descended from APAS, but didn’t know it was still hermaphroditic. But, has it been tested enough that NASA would consider using it if necessary on this trip?

[@EagerSpace]

No idea.

[@billmullins6833]

At the end of the day the taxpayers are on the hook for billions for a vehicle which has yet to fly. Hardware vs vaporware. Yeah, Boeing was betting SpaceX would stumble and they could soak the taxpayers for their usual bundle. I fully expect to see Sierra Space's Dream Chaser operational before Starliner.

[@EagerSpace]

Boeing only gets paid based completing milestones like the crewed certification flight and flying operational flights which was why NASA contracted with them in the first place.

[@BrianKelsay]

Soooo, the government is a bad customer due to not paying as promised or due to congress lowering available funding? Or Boeing is a bad vendor/supplier due to not staying within or under budget or not completing on time?

[@EagerSpace]

Congress is fairly notorious for giving NASA a specific mandate with a date attached to it and then not giving sufficient money to do what they asked. This is partly due to the fact that they have authorization bills - which tell NASA what to do - and appropriations bills - which tell NASA how much money they have to spend on a specific area, and they end up out of sync. I did a video on the budget process here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2XOhKqwpNGKm9k I probably wouldn't label Boeing as "bad". They pretty clearly didn't do their "due diligence" before they signed the contract, but some of the issue is that they just think they are better than they are and they aren't a lean nimble company like SpaceX.

[@JoaoBatist4]

Apparently Boeing chief astronaut Chris Ferguson stepped out last month. Sadly never flew into orbit with starliner.

[@dsdy1205]

maybe that was for the best >

[@armandomercado2248]

Good explanation of Boeing's struggle with Starliner. Boeing wasn't as good and Spacex was better. The Cargo Dragon gave Spacex a leg up.

[@michaeldemarco9950]

Oddly enough, Boeing doesn’t want to make a profit from their Boeing Starliner capsule. Do they have plans to go into the private sector with it as SpaceX has with the dragon? I don’t think so. That’s where they’re going to make their money.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

They don't want to make a profit? Says who?

[@michaeldemarco9950]

@@TheEvilmooseofdoom, they don’t act like it. They’ve even said at one point that they are only building enough CST100 capsules to satisfy NASA requirements. SpaceX, on the other hand, is taking business wherever they find it.

[@EagerSpace]

The current commercial market is Jared Isaacman - who is running his own Gemini program - and the small number of people who are willing to pay $50+ million to take an Axiom trip to ISS. Neither of those groups have any desire to fly Starliner. It's not that Boeing doesn't want more business, it that they don't see any way that Starliner can compete with Crew Dragon.

[@michaeldemarco9950]

@@EagerSpace , I’ll buy that.

[@ryanrising2237]

Have you got a P.O. Box or something? I dunno where to address that shirt to.

[@EagerSpace]

Eager Space Behind the water tower Second tree from the right Bellevue, WA 4R2D2

[@PetesGuide]

@@EagerSpaceHow many shirts did you get delivered to your treehouse? How many of them had helium leaks? Did any of them have parachute rigging problems?

[@WilliamDye-willdye]

Size medium shirts? 'Thought you were taller than that.

[@EagerSpace]

6'1", but I'm a cyclist and a runner and lots of large shirts are just annoyingly big on me.

[@EAP_7]

Nasa used to see Space X as a back plan when they signed on the crew capsule contracts. Now they see them as a major player but still show little respect, and are happy to publicly blame them for any issue that arises along the way with the flights back to the moon.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

How do you figure that? NASA has and still is one of spacex big supporters.

[@EagerSpace]

As Lori Garver pointed out in "Escaping Gravity", NASA has a lot of different internal groups so there isn't always a coherent perspective. If you go back and read the NASA analysis of SpaceX in commercial resupply they are really, really happy with the result; they got a very capable rocket plus capsule that was considerably cheaper than the yearly shuttle budget. There were certainly those who thought SpaceX would fail inside NASA and those who were unsurprised at how well they did.

[@chrislyon7147]

I bet the shirt doesn't fit and if I complain I'll be found dead in a car park.

[@uweporth9337]

why did boeing get twice as much money as spacex?

[@uweporth9337]

I saw why toward the end of the video. Had to buy votes, and politicians had to get kickbacks from 425 suppliers across 37 states. that is how congressmen and senators become multimillionaires while serving in congress.

[@EagerSpace]

NASA decided that they wanted to have two options for commercial crew so that they would have redundant providers, and when you contract that way you inherently will get one company with a cheaper bid and one with a more expensive one. It's the same thing that happened with commercial cargo. SpaceX is inherently a leaner company, they already had cargo dragon, and Falcon 9 launches are cheaper than Atlas V launches, so they had a lower cost basis and came in with a lower bid. They also likely wanted the contract more than Boeing did.

[@donjones4719]

@@uweporth9337 It's not quite as cynical as that. Plenty to be cynical about, but the politicians don't need direct kickbacks from 425 suppliers to want to preserve jobs in their district or state. Preserving the jobs get them votes from the constituents. As for how it works with Boeing and the really big subcontractors and their lobbyists - yes, there's plenty to be cynical about. Look for my big main Comment here about some big reasons why Starliner was always inevitably going to cost more than Dragon, even if Boeing and their suppliers were all Boy Scouts.

[@PetesGuide]

@@EagerSpaceWas there ever an option to launch Starliner on Falcon 9?