"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote on Tue,
25 Jun 2019 15:51:12 -0400:

"JF Mezei" wrote in message ...

Dragon had a failure in a critical system which prevents the test of
this critical system (abort in flight).

Starliner hasn't had any failures because it is behind and hasn't even
had unmanned test.

Assuming SpaceX has found the cause and knows how to fix it, Dragon
could be back in business and still be quite ahead. SpaceX appears have
a new policy of not letting Musk say much, so I don't know that one can
derive a conclusion from lack of news.


When Boeing starts its tests, it could work flawlessly or not. We have
to wait. Will they also have a max-Q abort test? That would seem to
require at least 2 test flights right?

I have not seen a max-Q abort test for Starliner planned. I may have
missed
it, but I don't think so.
I think NASA is still treating Boeing as "they've done this before, we can
trust them a bit more."
And perhaps after the recent SpaceX explosion, they might be right.


I tend to put it more down to relative cost of the two boosters. I
suspect it was SpaceX's choice to do a 'live test' for a Max-Q abort.


Yeah, I guess I didn't add the comment I thought I had, but I suspect SpaceX
feels it's cheaper to do a live test because for them it's a fairly small
incremental cost (fuel and if there's overtime added to the workflow). For
Boeing, it's a much steeper cost and they probably are comfortable enough
saying it's cheaper to do ground testing than "waste" a booster.

Wikipedia shows that test as scheduled for late July using a previously
flown booster, but I wonder if the abort test will destroy the booster.

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/