Source: NASA cancels $450 million VIPER moon rover due to budget concerns | Space NASA has cancelled its VIPER moon rover program due to rising costs. VIPER, short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, was a robotic mission intended to land near the moon's south pole and spend 100 days scouting for lunar ice deposits. The rover was slated to launch in 2025 to the moon aboard an Astrobotic Griffin lander as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative (CLPS). Now, it appears VIPER will be scrapped for parts or potentially sold to industry. The decision to axe the VIPER mission was announced today (July 17) in a teleconference; cancelling the program is expected to save the agency an additional $84 million in development costs. NASA has spent about $450 million on the program so far, not including launch costs. Source2: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/03/nx-s1-5026448/boeing-starliner-astronauts-space-station-return#:~:text=In%202014%2C%20Boeing%20received%20a,Space%20Station%20within%20the%20decade. In 2014, Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract from NASA to build Starliner. The spacecraft was supposed to ferry astronauts regularly to and from the International Space Station within the decade. Those flights are now years behind schedule, and the delays have cost Boeing at least $1.5 billion in losses. Elon said it best, 'Technical company managers should be technical, not spreadsheet artists.' Bob Wilson
The situation in which the Starliner has found itself exemplifies the need for a space recovery vehicle which was lost when the space shuttle was decommissioned. We need to rethink the type of spacecraft that was used in the Gemini Project, which allowed an astronaut to conveniently leave the vehicle. A special recovery automated container could be sent into low orbit, attached to a manned spacecraft that docks with the container. The crew would do a space walk to place the satellite or, in case of the Starliner, the defective service module, undock, and the container renter the atmosphere, where it splashes down and is recovered from the ocean. Upon return, a full analysis of the defective Starliner service module can be analyzed. The same could be done with a valuable satellite.
I appreciate the goal but there are technical problems. The worst, hydrazine thruster propellant which is truly nasty stuff. There is also return of gravity and flight G-forces without well designed, mechnanical support. Basically, Boeing designed to put all those flight critical components in a disposable service module. In contrast, the Dragon has virtually nothing in the 'service module'. It has solar cells and radiators and fixtures to hold vacuums qualified payloads. The flight critical systems are inside the capsule and always returned, refurbished, and reused. Bob Wilson
Boeing has been systematically hollowed out from within. Engineers were expensive and tended to whine endlessly about potential problems. Worse, they were stupid enough to document problems! A great many of them are now gone. It is not clear that Boeing is still competent to create new vehicles.
sames true for universities. ever take a look at who in charge or your favorite school(s) these days? for that matter who's heading up NASA 2024?
