[hoorayimhelping]

>I am still a bit puzzled how cheerful some people seem about a product that was unable to fulfill its purpose: Starliner getting to its intended destination.

Calling a space capsule a product and treating it like some kind of tech product launch and framing it's success that way is weird. It's a spacecraft and the mission was meant to test its capabilities and get data about it during an actual orbital flight, then go from there.

The reason everyone is trying to be so cheerful and optimistic is because it was a partial success - the capsule stayed together and landed, which were part of its mission parameters. But (clearly) the public perception of this mission is that it failed because it didn't get to the ISS, so I imagine people are trying to be cheerful to remind people that they're not upset cause they didn't fail, they just didn't fully succeed.

I'm no fan of Boeing or how they've handled 787 MAX or ULA or Starliner or their relationship with NASA, but calling this not too promising is a bit unfair.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It failed for essentially trivial reasons. Which suggests there are issues with the procedures that should eliminate those failures, and that similar failure modes are possible.

That's why it's not encouraging - and why it's not at all unfair to be scathing.

[CamperBob2]

We launched the ISS over 20 years ago. If you look 20 years down the road from Kitty Hawk, we had already built tens of thousands of manned aircraft and fought a world war with them at that point in time.

Apparently, 20 years of progress and "promise" ain't what it used to be.

[ericd]

I think it's because it's a lot easier to go fast when there are huge potential rewards (winning a World War) and you're willing to accept fatalities (war). The rewards here are much more nebulous, and we're not willing to accept fatalities. So we go slow and careful.