I’m impressed.
Meanwhile the US contractors are taking the American taxpayer for a ride.
I will tell you what the problem is. It is that industry does not know how to pick good managers. The criteria is 10% proven competence and 90% other stuff.
Of course, mediocre managers will then pick their technical team using bogus criteria. And viola… ridiculous cost/schedule overruns and too many technical “oopsies”.
I’ve been part of this establishment for close to 40 years… management - reporting in at executive levels (though not claiming any exec status myself) - and working engineer. I’ve worked space, aircraft, weapons, and some commercial business. The government is part of the problem but only part. The government micromanages both the technology and the human resource aspects of companies like Boeing. But the companies themselves are now fully indoctrinated into mediocrity too. It’s a social issue.
We will continue to shovel money into the open mouths of contractors instead of doing actual science.
EM-2 keeps slipping further and further behind. Probably won’t even happen during a hypothetical second term let alone his first term.
Meanwhile the plan to commercialize the space station is basically over before it stated. There simply isn’t a commercial interest in a boon doggle.
The Russian rocket has had an exceptional history of reliability.
But rocket science is rocket science. Nothing is foolproof and even the tiniest error can result in a failure.
The astronauts survived and they can try again another day.
With a hole drilled into the last Soyuz spacecraft and now a booster failure of an exemplary rocket, it should have some people scratching their heads.
Bringing them to earth safe is impressive and inspiring news. Our space programs coooeration has always represented that.
Russia has enacted a moratorium on launches until the cause is discovered and if there is a saboteur, I have no doubt their intelligence agencies will find them out.
Unfortunately this will likely result in the ISS being unoccupied if they can’t get a launch in the next few months. The current Soyuz in orbit can only stay for 200 days.
