The budget numbers don’t look good.

Star Burst

The Boeing Starliner — which has marooned two NASA astronauts in space after it ran into trouble on its first crewed voyage — has cost nearly double what SpaceX spent on its rival Crew Dragon, with Starliner plagued by far more technical problems.

The Starliner’s budget woes came to the fore this week when Boeing admitted in a quarterly statement, flagged by Ars Technica, that the company lost another $125 million on the Starliner, adding up to around $5.8 billion in total cost.

NASA had originally awarded $4.2 billion to Boeing to build Starliner, resulting in an almost $1.6 billion loss for the company.

Meanwhile, NASA had given only around $3.1 billion to SpaceX, headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, for the Dragon capsule, which has now been successfully ferrying astronauts to space since 2020. In contrast, this is the maiden crewed mission for Starliner, a project marred overall with years of delays,

Starliner’s current problems were evident even before its launch into space in June. The capsule experienced a helium leak in one of its thrusters, but NASA went ahead with the mission.

And then on its journey towards the International Space Station in June, the Starliner had more helium leaks and issues with its thrusters, which has indefinitely delayed the return of the two astronauts it brought to the space outpost as teams on the ground scramble to understand its technical woes.

Course Correct

NASA had wanted two options for ferrying astronauts into space, which is why it awarded Boeing and SpaceX deals to build reusable capsules. But SpaceX has come on top in the race, with NASA awarding it a $1.4 billion extension in 2022 due to Starliner delays.

Sure, this means things are great for SpaceX and okay for NASA, which hasn’t had to eat the losses from the Starliner. But it’s terrible news for Boeing, which has also been dealing with a storm of controversy since a door plug blew out from one of its planes earlier this year.

But NASA doesn’t have redundancy for space capsules in the eventuality that SpaceX has any issues.

And there’s another wrinkle: NASA has become increasingly reliant on Musk and SpaceX over the years, which may explain why NASA has not come out to publicly spank Musk for sexual misconduct and sometimes fatal safety concerns at SpaceX.

And that’s bad for taxpayers, who should demand better from people receiving government money.

More on Boeing Starliner: Retired Astronaut Admits Boeing’s Starliner Has Trapped Crew in Space