Talk:Boeing Starliner

How many seats, 7, 5, 4 ?

Has the number of seats changed during development ? Infobox says 7, other places imply 4 or 5. - Rod57 (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@Rod57: Initially designed for 7, 5 seats actually mounted, NASA CCP missions use four. On CCP missions, Boeing can apparently sell the fifth seat but the details are not known. There is somewhat similar confusion on Crew Dragon, which was originally designed for 7, has 4 seats mounted and will never launch with more than 4, but could apparently be used to bring 7 back from ISS in an emergency. -Arch dude (talk) 16:48, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

No contingency?

I removed this:

• Since Boeing does not intend to build Spacecraft 4, no spare vehicle contingency exists for spacecraft issues (or loss) during NASA Commercial Crew contract.

It is not supported by the reference. The second part looks like Original resarch. Can someone find a reference? -Arch dude (talk) 20:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Note also that NASA does have a contingency, namely Crew Dragon, so the statement will need to be modified even if we do find a reference. -Arch dude (talk) 20:11, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

OIG scrutiny in lede

@RickyCourtney: I was not objecting to mention of OIG scrutiny. The problem is that the particular comparison was from a 2019 OIG analysis of CCP as a whole, but the sentence in the lede makes it appear that it was directed specifically at Boeing/Starliner. It is a side issue that has been picked up (probably from Wikipedia) by Joey Foust and other journalists. There are very real and very important problems that have required much more scrutiny. I think they are in the Reuters article that Foust referenced. -Arch dude (talk) 15:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

After reading the IG report, I see what you mean.

Perhaps we could reword it like this:

Because of the multiple delays, Boeing has lost more than $1.5 billion on the project. NASA's inspector general has criticized the agency for overpaying Boeing for Starliner flights. Observers have also criticized the $90 million per-seat cost for flights on the spacecraft, which is over 60% higher than the $55 million for the Crew Dragon.

Or we can leave out the per-seat costs:

Because of the multiple delays, Boeing has lost more than $1.5 billion on the project. NASA's inspector general has criticized the agency for overpaying Boeing for Starliner flights. Observers have also criticized the cost for flights on the spacecraft, which are over 60% higher than on the competing Crew Dragon.

RickyCourtney (talk) 18:37, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Better, but the problem with the per-seat cost comparison is that so far NASA has not paid anything for Starliner CCP seats! I think (not sure) that Boeing is locked in to the $90M/seat for six missions (Crew-1 to 6). NASA paid the $55M/seat for the first six Crew Dragon missions, but those have already flown. The seat price rose for the first contract extension (Crew-7 to 9) and again for the second contract extension (Crew-10 to 14). The prices rose by approximately the inflation rate. I think we should drop the prices fromt helede, but we need a section in the article about the more recent increased oversight and the cost to NASA of that oversight. We can then add a one-sentence description in the lede, since it is a big part of the Starliner story. -Arch dude (talk) 20:28, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I still think it's important context. A recent article, which takes into account the costs through Crew-14 states:

"Boeing, in flying 24 astronauts, has a per-seat price of $183 million. SpaceX, in flying 56 astronauts during the same time frame, has a seat price of $88 million. Thus, NASA is paying Boeing 2.1 times the price per seat that it is paying SpaceX, inclusive of development costs incurred by NASA."

If we want to avoid getting into the numbers, which is admittedly a moving target, we could say:

Because of the multiple delays, Boeing has lost more than $1.5 billion on the project. The price paid per flight has also drawn criticism from NASA's inspector general and from observers who point to significantly lower costs on the competing Crew Dragon.

RickyCourtney (talk) 20:55, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Launch Mass

So, just corious - where does the launch mass come from? do you have a source for it? because we had a somewhat heated discussion about in over in the german wiki, i'd like a source for it, that is reliable, cheers Adtonko (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Adtonko: it probably came from "Gunter's Space Page":

• Krebs, Gunter. "Starliner (CST-100)". Gunter's Space Page. Archived from the original on May 3, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2017.

However I don't know if we consider it a reliable source, so I won't stick it back in. We do use that citation for that number on the Atlas V page. -Arch dude (talk) 16:13, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Krebs work is considered unreliable by the folks over in the german wiki. I took that ref there and it got emideially thrown out. Thats why I was asking Adtonko (talk) 16:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

can we find a good design image?

I moved the image of the mock-up of the capsule out of the "design" section, since we have images of real hardware now. However, we do not have an image that adequately shows the entire spacecraft (capsule+SM). We need an image similar to something like this, but with a proper license. -Arch dude (talk) 16:20, 16 July 2024 (UTC)