• MelaniaTrump [undecided]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    “We let our product quality speak for itself and it’s a proud testament to our commitment to shareholder value and executive compensation,” said a Boeing spokesperson.

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      No, because NASA needs both FBI and Congressional approval to co-operate with Chinese space programs due to the Wolf Amendment.

      Despite Chinese spacecraft being based on the Soyuz and should be compatible with the ISS, China is effectively banned from the ISS.

        • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          1: Exclude China from the ISS and co-operative spaceflight technology and advancements just to be a dick

          2: Retire your (mediocre) space shuttle program, opting to outsource spaceflight entirely to privately owned space programs

          3: China develops a successful domestic space programme in less time with a better build quality, lands on the moon and launches a domestic manned space station

          4: Private spaceflight is dodgy, unsafe, overpriced and SEVEN YEARS behind schedule, this stranding your astronauts for 6+ months, with no telling if the 2025 estimate would actually happen because the backup plan to Boeing is Elon Musk’s SpaceX

          5: ???

          6: Profit(?)

          See at this stage, I feel like if the US repealed the amendment, apologized and simply asked China politely, those astronauts could probably be brought back within 2 weeks. But it’s an election year so idk if the Dems want to appear weak on China. Sucks to be a USian astronaut right now.

      • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        that would be an incredible photo, soaring over that now-sunbleached-totally-white flag with the earthrise in the background

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    My country is looking to privatize trash management and I really do not understand why that decision is popular (among voters, not politicians) when almost every example of privatisation is things turning to shit

    • peeonyou [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      more than that, it’s the only system that works at all ever in the history of the context of all in which you live and all that came before you!

      • christian [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        This is so humbling. I’m an arrogant American myself and didn’t think I needed an outside perspective on this issue at all until that user asked.

    • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      I think they’re a few big reasons for that. Insert usual caveat about how I have nothing but contempt for the absentee figurehead shithead-in-chief, and my praise here is strictly for the actual engineers, technicians, and scientists doing the real work. Or to put it another way: they’re not really Elon’s rockets!

      First, SpaceX is immune to Wall Street shenanigans because they’re not publicly traded and have no debt. They’re a private company that’s been profitable most of its existence. There’s no share price to screw with, no loans to use as leverage over management, no way to do a hostile takeover.

      Second, SpaceX is extremely vertically integrated. They make most of their own stuff. They very rarely outsource anything. When they do, it’s more like a “job interview” than a long-term arrangement. If the company they outsource to doesn’t deliver, they’re never used again. If they do deliver, SpaceX buys them. SpaceX also has an extremely advanced and centralized system for managing all aspects of all projects. Imagine Allende’s Project Cybersyn but just for aerospace. Does Boeing even make its own jetliner wings anymore?

      Third, right now SpaceX lives and dies by the reliability of its Falcon 9 rocket, especially the reused first stages. Without Falcon 9, they’d be dead in the water, no payload going up, no customer cash coming in, no resources available for Starship R&D. As part of the cost-savings reusability, they need to do a huge amount of QA on technical aspects that a lot of other rocket manufacturers might not care about recording for a disposable rocket.

    • gila@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Uh, Starship was supposed to fly manned missions to the moon next month. In its most recent tests last year it went out of control in LEO, without even carrying any payload.