What Went Wrong?

The Starliner debacle is now past,  with the crew still on the International Space Station,  but the capsule safely landed in New Mexico.  With all the problems that cropped up on this test flight,  NASA thought it best not to risk the crew’s lives riding home in Starliner,  despite their both being former Navy test pilots and former NASA astronauts. 

One must ask the question:  what went wrong?  As near as I can tell,  there were some very serious plumbing problems.  There are two systems involved.  One is the helium gas pressurant that drives the propellants to the attitude control thrusters and maneuvering engines,  and the other is in the delivery lines for the nitrogen tetroxide oxidant those thrusters and engines use.

Those devices use nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer,  and one of the hydrazine fuels,  as propellants that ignite all by themselves upon contact.  Being helium pressure-driven instead of turbo-pumped,  they are extremely-simple rocket designs!  This technology dates back over 6 decades,  to the earliest manned space flights in the very early 1960’s.  From about 1965 forward,  this technology has been very dependable and reliable. 

So,  what went wrong with Starliner?  And why?

One problem was multiple helium leaks.  There was one known before launch,  and more appeared during the flight to the space station,  including one that was rather large.  Closing valves at the supply tanks stops the leaks,  but one must worry about how long the helium supply will last,  when you open those valves to use the thruster systems,  and the leaks resume!   

The other problem was thrusters erratically underperforming.  The trouble was traced to reductions in nitrogen tetroxide flow because of some sort of seals swelling when hot,   and acting to reduce the oxidizer flow.  Thrusters way-underperform when that happens. 

These thruster propellants are very toxic,  and they react quite readily and rather extremely with the materials one uses in the plumbing design.  In particular,  nitrogen tetroxide has a history of this,  even more so than hydrazine!  This is not a new problem,  based on the history,  back to the early 1960’s. 

It was no longer a problem with Apollo or the Space Shuttle.  It is apparently not a current problem with crew Dragon.  But it has once again become a problem with Starliner!  Why?

There are two suspects for this:  one is corporate greed over-riding any ethics,  and the other is an interruption of the passing-on of prior knowledge and history to the current generation of engineering designers.  Both are at work here!

The corporate greed problem traces directly to the anonymity of working in a very large organization.  People in large organizations are effectively separated from face-to-face contact with the people their actions might hurt.  So they will do evils,  as part of the organization,  that they would never do one-on-one,  with members of the public.  That frees the corporate bigwigs to act in any manner that maximizes money made,  so long as they do not get caught violating any laws.

The problem of an interruption in the passing-on of prior knowledge is also related to money!  There is an old saying that I like to quote:   “Rocket science is not really science.  It is only about 40% science,  that being the stuff written down.  It is about 50% art,  that being the stuff never written down,  because no one would pay to have it written down.  And,  it is about 10% blind dumb luck”. 

I would only add that’s in production work;  in development,  the art and luck percentages are even higher!  That engineering art is not taught in schools.  It is passed-on one-on-one,  on-the-job,  from the old hand to the newbie.  Except,  it is only passed-on,  if the company hasn’t gotten rid of all the old hands as too-expensive!

Boeing was once renowned for its high-quality aircraft.  Bombers included the B-17,  the B-29,  the B-47,  and the B-52.  Transports included the B-377/C-97 that saw long service as the KC-97 tanker,  the B-707/720,  the B-727,  the early B-737 models,  the B-747,  the B-757,  the B-767,  and the B-777. 

However,  in recent years,  Boeing transports have become more problematical,  and they don’t make bombers anymore (the last being the B-1B actually built by North American Rockell,  whom Boeing bought).

Most folks are aware of the serious troubles with the late-model B-737MAX series.  They might not be aware of troubles with the B-777-9 certification,  the serious quality issues plaguing B-787 Dreamliner assembly,  and the KC-46 tanker (based on the B-767) that could not effectively serve as a tanker for 2 years after entering service.  We will see how the earlier 737 models work out as the new Navy P-8 patrol plane (update 9-20-2024). 

These troubles (and the SLS rocket that is too expensive to use,  plus the failure-prone Starliner) emerged after Boeing absorbed its last transport competitor,  McDonnell-Douglas,  and a merged  corporate management regime took over.   The new regime bragged about converting the company from a quality product producer,  to one that maximized shareholder value.  They also moved headquarters away from where engineering was done,  to Chicago (update 9-20-2024),  finally to Virginia,  to better lobby Congress.

All this shows in the stock price history plotted over time.  Growth in stock price mostly surged after the new regime took over,  punctuated primarily  by the Covid-induced downturn that affected everybody.  Clearly,  money matters,  but lives do not,  not anymore!  And that simply cannot be tolerated in a manufacturer of aircraft,  or spacecraft!

There are some regulators who need to account for letting this happen!