Boeing has now lost $1.1B on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight
While there are concerns with the bidding process, I think this is a pretty big &quot;nothing&quot;, in the grand scheme.<p>There is some pretty horrific anti-Boeing spin.<p>&gt; Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time.<p>&gt; Asked whether Starliner might be able to launch this year, Stich did not offer a concrete timetable. &quot;We&#x27;re not really ready to talk about a launch opportunity yet,&quot; he said. &quot;We&#x27;re going to work the technical issues first, and then we&#x27;ll sit down with the Boeing team when the time is right and pick a launch target.&quot;<p>Reasonable and responsible as a response. However, Ars spins that response into:<p>&gt; Such an answer suggests that Starliner&#x27;s launch on an Atlas V rocket ... may very well slip into 2024.<p>I mean, a few month delay on <i>a brand new space vehicle</i> isn&#x27;t &quot;OMG, Boeing failed!&quot;<p>But even that is not enough: Ars doubles down, and now NASA&#x27;s refusal to provide a concrete updated launch date means not only is it &quot;[slipping] into 2024&quot;, but apparently almost to 2025:<p>&gt; Given the ongoing delays, it is now possible that Crew-9 flies next fall, before Boeing&#x27;s first operational mission, Starliner-1.<p>Which is hilarious (ambiguity about launches) as NASA doesn&#x27;t even know when in 2024 (except that it will be <i>at least</i> Spring) Crew-EIGHT will launch... (and neither NASA nor SpaceX itself has made any communication on Crew-9 launch timeframes.)<p>All 100% speculation. The &quot;ongoing delays&quot; in this context are &quot;in June, Boeing announced that it would push back the July launch&quot;.<p>I also question Ars&#x27; framing of this as &quot;losing money&quot;... it&#x27;s R&amp;D expenditures.<p>Ars (and its Space editor, Eric Berger, who has written books about SpaceX) are pretty heavy proponents of SpaceX (which I generally am too, despite being less enthusiastic about its leader), and this article just reeks of subjective opinion, more so than objective neutrality.