IT'S BACK!! What SpaceX Dragon Just Did Killed Starliner But Nasa&Boeing...

IT'S BACK!! What SpaceX Dragon Just Did Killed Starliner But Nasa&Boeing...
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IT'S BACK!! What SpaceX Dragon Just Did Killed Starliner But Nasa&Boeing...
Boeing's Starliner could be flying again before the end of this year. And on paper, that sounds like good news for everyone. NASA finally gets a backup. Dragon finally gets to breathe. Except Elon Musk saw the announcement, typed one short sentence, and somehow managed to embarrass both Boeing and NASA without even trying. So what did he actually say? And why can't this comeback wash away everything Starliner has already put NASA through? Let's get into it.
Starliner. The spacecraft NASA once favored above all others — even above SpaceX's Dragon — handing Boeing the richest contract in the Commercial Crew Program. And it turned out not just worse than Dragon, but worse than Soyuz, a capsule running on technology from 1967. Twelve years. Four point two billion dollars of taxpayer money. Zero astronauts flown to the station and brought home. And Boeing is now trapped — keep patching it and the money keeps bleeding, walk away and every dollar already spent is gone.
IT'S BACK!! What SpaceX Dragon Just Did Killed Starliner But Nasa&Boeing...
But this week, finally, some good news. On Boeing's July 28th earnings call, CEO Kelly Ortberg told investors that the redesign of Starliner's deficiencies is, in his words, going quite well.
The remaining hurdle, he said, is mostly scheduling. A launch date. An open docking port. So Starliner could fly before the end of this year. That's genuinely news worth waiting for — but apparently, not for NASA. While Boeing was telling investors Starliner could return, NASA had just finished buying six more crew missions from SpaceX. Six. In a federal procurement filing, they stated it in writing — Boeing's technical issues and schedule delays were the reason.
That may be the clearest sign yet that Starliner is no longer the favorite child NASA once spoiled, and that Dragon is the only winner left in this race. And the news of Starliner's upcoming return quickly reached Elon Musk's ears. When Eric Berger of Ars Technica posted the story, Musk read it and replied with three words. "I hope so." Nobody can be sure whether that's genuine hope, or something sharper. Because Musk has talked about this vehicle before.
September 2024, right after NASA decided Starliner wasn't safe enough to bring its own crew home, Musk pointed out that Boeing received no FAA fines at all, while, in his words, the FAA was harassing SpaceX over nonsense that doesn't affect safety. He called for resignations. Then in November 2024, he went even further, writing that there's no logical purpose to Starliner, since the station only has about five years of life left. So this time, "I hope so," coming from him, might as well mean — I hope Boeing can finally get this goddamn spacecraft off the ground.
IT'S BACK!! What SpaceX Dragon Just Did Killed Starliner But Nasa&Boeing...
So why does Musk hold such a grudge against this vehicle? Is it simply because it's not as good as Dragon? Or is there another reason?
Truth is, it's about money. And it's your money. In 2014, NASA signed both contracts on the same day. Boeing got 4.2 billion dollars. SpaceX got 2.6 billion. Sixty-two percent more, for the identical job. Maybe that's what convinced Boeing their vehicle belonged in a class of its own — because in 2019, NASA's own Inspector General priced the seats. Dragon, about 55 million dollars per astronaut. Call that the economy ticket. Starliner, about 90 million. That one boards in business class. The thing hadn't even proven it could fly, and they still priced it above Russia — because Russia was charging America roughly 86 million dollars per seat on Soyuz. Boeing quoted a price higher than the very ransom this country had spent billions trying to escape. And it didn't stop there. The same watchdog found that NASA quietly paid Boeing an extra 287 million dollars beyond the contract to keep developing the vehicle. SpaceX has never received anything like that — despite everything it has delivered for NASA. And notice what that payment reveals. This wasn't simply Boeing taking advantage of NASA. NASA actively paid more to keep Boeing alive as its second provider. It's hard to imagine anything more backwards.
If that makes your blood boil, drop a "1" in the comments below.

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