NASA Chief Classifies Starliner Flight As 'Type A' Mishap, Says Agency Made Mistakes (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0180829146
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/19/2353238/nasa-chief-classifies-starliner-flight-as-type-a-mishap-says-agency-made-mistakes
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/nasa-chief-classifies-starliner-flight-as-type-a-mishap-says-agency-made-mistakes/
> As part of the announcement, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman sent an [5]agency-wide letter that recognized the shortcomings of both Starliner's developer, Boeing, as well as the space agency itself. Starliner flew under the auspices of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, in which the agency procures astronaut transportation services to the International Space Station. "We are taking ownership of our shortcomings," Isaacman said.
>
> "Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware," Isaacman wrote in his letter to the NASA workforce. "It is decision-making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight." Isaacman said there would be "leadership accountability" as a result of the decisions surrounding the Starliner program, but did not say which actions would be taken.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/nasa-chief-classifies-starliner-flight-as-type-a-mishap-says-agency-made-mistakes/
[2] https://constructionsafety.ssc.nasa.gov/documents/NASAMishapClassifications.pdf
[3] https://slashdot.org/story/24/06/24/2336238/starliner-to-remain-docked-to-iss-with-no-new-departure-date
[4] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-releases-report-on-starliner-crewed-flight-test-investigation/
[5] https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2024558806135689354
Not another Challenger incident (Score:3)
At least they identified the decision-making problems before another Challenger incident. When the prevailing attitude is "it looks good on paper. What could go wrong?" without real-world testing of the hardware in actual space environments, they are signalling they are willing to accept mistakes and fix them later.
Not the way manned missions should be tested. Accept the cost of many test flights in actual space with proposed modifications before putting astronauts on board.
Re: (Score:3)
> At least they identified the decision-making problems before another Challenger incident.
As they said, "shortcomings that nearly left astronauts unable to safely return", it would probably be more akin to Columbia than Challenger. Just sayin' ...
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how much of this is due to funding problems. They are under pressure to get Americans on the moon before China lands people there around 2030, but to accelerate the programme and do it safely requires money.
Boing has a culture incompatible with human flight (Score:2)
> a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.
Yep. Boing has already unlocked that achievement for normal planes, now they are trying hard in the spaceflight.
it's called "Boeing" for a reason (Score:2)
It's called "Boeing" for a reason.
That's the sound generated at the exact moment the plane touches the ground.
At least it generated a lot of jobs (Score:2)
or a least I was told so.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it generated a lot of jobs.
All Old Space projects generate a lot of jobs - all those people making jewelry for the now incredibly rich manager's wives.
Too true (Score:3, Interesting)
> "Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware," Isaacman wrote in his letter to the NASA workforce. "It is decision-making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."
No shit. It took an outsider to point out to the Artemis program that not a single one of them had ever read "SP-287 What Made Apollo a Success?" and so effectively used none of the knowledge and experience built up over the decade-plus of the Apollo program.
The helium leak (Score:2)
A helium leak was reported prior to launch, yet they proceeded with the mission because it was “minor”. Then, it became a major issue and they were forced to scrap the mission. Do I have it right?
The old NASA made occasional mistakes, but they had a culture of must-not-fail; each team had to prove their subsystem was nominal before the mission could proceed. Their dedication was legendary.
Politicization, DEI, and the general decline in American technical standards and work ethic have ruined Boei
Re:Disaster that classists caused (Score:3)
classism breeds corruption which produces incompetency