That isn’t how the rocket launch industry works. If there is an a failure with one. They have to inspect them all. That’s not to say it would be a long process, but quantity of Falcons is not important here

I completely agree. Unfortunately, logic doesn’t always win when it comes to politicians who control the money… and the companies that can influence them.

Do you know how long it takes government to build something that goes to the moon with the budget NASA has? We'd be waiting for another 15 years. Quick case study: The Shuttle took a decade and it was only going to LEO and back.

Private space companies are definitely shaking things up, but they aren't the main driving force behind anything related the Moon at this time. They're not even in the ballpark for science only missions. NASA, still has a huge role to play. Unfortunately, that means the monstrosity that is SLS in here to stay for at least another decade - hopefully that can get phased out and the money redistributed accordingly.

It doesn't matter how reliable the Falcon 9 and Dragon are. It's great that they are reliable, but anything made my people will eventually fail. I'm not going to speculate on how/when because we could be here for the rest of the week.

Boeing has had a lot of difficulties and I'm not a fan of Starliner. The only way for Boeing to even start to get close to the reliability of Falcon and Dragon is to launch when its safe to do so. Will this be a long term spacecraft? Absolutely not. It will be rarely used, but it is still necessary.

>how long has this thing been in development now?

If I told you it started in 2010, how infuriated would you be?

I'm well aware of this fact. However, if they just scrapped it there would be no going to the moon for quite some time. You work with what you have, not what you want.

Guess what Boeing did? There are a lot of interesting reports on what has gone on at Boeing in the past 20-30 years. The biggest is that they cut costs on safety and reliability... hence this massive delay and cost overrun. They need to get back to the Engineering... and fast.

People were saying the same thing about SLS when it was having delays launching. Boeing has plenty of issues, and Starliner isn't all it's cracked up to be. Scrapping it at this point isn't a good idea, however. If something goes wrong with Falcon 9 and/or Dragon, human spaceflight takes a huge hit. There needs to be a backup, even if it's not as great and way more expensive. I look at Boeing as the B team that can come in if there is an unexpected issue.

I'm 35 and have an interview for a NASA internship next week. There are people who are older than me who have done the same thing. A mentor of mine is doing it now at 47. It's never too late. Although I do suggest you do it sooner rather than later.

You just trolled the hell out of a couple people.

NASA, and the entire space industry for that matter, isn't made up of only people who are good with math. They have PR people, they have budget people (not as math intensive), logistics, scheduling, contracting, etc. so don't just sell yourself short. I've run into people who are theater majors and love space - there is stuff to do with that too. If you want it - you'll find a spot for yourself in the industry somewhere.