"Preliminary design discussions have commenced, and in May, NASA awarded BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman contracts worth a combined $17.5M to advance key stabilizing tech."
Noticeably absent from that list: Boeing. The next time Boeing is awarded a contract, I will immediately wonder how much money it cost them into convincing someone. I just can't see how they would ever be considered again. As in, what does Boeing need to do to prove they have fixed the glitch?
The glitch is Boeing's focus on stock price instead of quality products. They can't seem to build an airplane correctly. They can't seem to build an orbiter correctly. I would hope all of that has been taken into consideration by the decadal survey members, and that's why they were not mentioned
Their Starliner human spacecraft has failed and astronauts are currently trapped on the ISS until they can figure out the problem. This is after billions of dollars and several years of delays.
They are not trapped on the ISS. NASA has stated that the capsule can safely bring them home if needed. The problem is that the service module with the flawed parts will burn up on entry, so before that they are trying to get as much test data out of it as they can.
Worst case, NASA would just send a SpaceX Dragon up to bring them home, but this would be a huge amount of egg on Boeing's face.
Yes, Boeing hosed up, but we don't need to exaggerate how much they hosed up.
If I drive a car across country but it breaks down, I refer to that as being stuck at whatever location until the car can be repaired. So yeah, trapped might not be the most accurate word, but it's not that far fetched in every day parlance with how common exaggeration for effect is used in daily dialog. There's only so much that can be "examined" while this thing is docked in space.
Essentially, the Starliner's astronauts are waiting for the AAA tow truck to come help them, so they're trapped from being able to do their normally scheduled itinerary. You can mince words all you want, but the egg is on Boeing's face already. Having Dragon come get them would just be the mercy killing of the wounded animal that is Boeing.
Noticeably absent from that list: Boeing. The next time Boeing is awarded a contract, I will immediately wonder how much money it cost them into convincing someone. I just can't see how they would ever be considered again. As in, what does Boeing need to do to prove they have fixed the glitch?