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Boeing Unveils Cabin Design For Commercial Spaceliner

Posted by timothy on from the free-toy-craft-for-every-kid dept.

Jeremiah Cornelius (137) writes " Did you enjoy your flight, Dr Heywood Floyd?" Boeing unveiled a new concept for the cabin of a future commercial spaceliner, based on the blue-lit Boeing "Sky" interior of the company's modern airliners, as well as work on the company's CST-100 space capsule. "Provided there is a destination for them out there, how will that passenger want to go back and forth?'" said Chris Ferguson, a former astronaut who commanded NASA's final space shuttle mission in 2011 and now serves as Boeing's director of crew and mission operations for the commercial crew program. Boeing developed the CST-100 capsule to compete for NASA's space station crew launch business after the agency retired its space shuttle fleet. The capsule is designed to launch on an expendable Atlas 5 rocket. NASA will be selecting one or more companies in August of this year, with the aim of reaching flight operations in 2017."

74 comments

  1. Talk (concepts) is cheap by CRCulver · · Score: 2

    By quoting Kubrick's film (Heywood Floyd travels in a Pan-Am spaceflight in 2001: A Space Odyssey ), the summary suggests that Boeing is preparing to send commercial travellers to space stations or the moon. In that case, unveiling a concept would just be meaningless fluff PR, like those architecture firms that show off plans for mile-high arcologies but have no initiative to actually build them. For the time being, the only prospects for human commercial spaceflight is sending people up to enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness, not even real orbit.

    1. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      show off plans for mile-high arcologies but have no initiative to actually build them

      I think you mean no practical materials and infrastructure and economic case...

      the only prospects for human commercial spaceflight is sending people up to enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness, not even real orbit.

      So besides a joyride, what possible commercial use would there be for anyone in "real" orbit? Look, I'm old too, I grew up on the meaningless fluff space PR of the '60s and '70s, it's hard to accept it was just a daydream.

    2. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by clarkkent09 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      US tourism industry is worth about $126 billion/year, worldwide over $1 trillion. Don't underestimate joyrides.

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    3. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are the two even comparable? Usually in tourism it's not about the vehicle, but the destination. And the price.

      So go on, explain to me how a week-long all-inclusive vacation to, say, Mexico is comparable to a 10 minute hop in a cramped tin can for the price of a house?

    4. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are the two even comparable? Usually in tourism it's not about the vehicle, but the destination. And the price.

      So go on, explain to me how a week-long all-inclusive vacation to, say, Mexico is comparable to a 10 minute hop in a cramped tin can for the price of a house?

      The selfies you can take in space are probably going to be a better self-promo than the ones you can take in Mexico.

    5. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, this is pretty clearly marketing. This is basically an "artist's rendition" of what the interior of such a space vehicle would look like. Needless to say, how to do interior design of the cabin is not really the biggest obstacle in the way of this vehicle existing.

      Actually I think it might not even be marketing for their space arm, but cross-over marketing for their commercial airliner arm. Boeing has been rolling out their new "Sky interior" concept on new and refurbished planes, and there's a big branding push to make it have a positive/modern/advanced image in travelers' minds. Tying it in with some futuristic space-shuttle concept whose interior looks remarkably like the 787's interior could be part of that strategy.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    6. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by clarkkent09 · · Score: 2

      I don't know but 600 people have already paid and thousands more put their name down for a trip on Virgin Galactic at $250K a seat.

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    7. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 1

      It looks like United Launch has been working on human rating the Atlas V and building a Crew Transportation System since 2006
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

      I can only imagine that this sudden rush of PR is due to SpaceX's recent smear of UL for locking them out of the military space market

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    8. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Climbing Mount Everest can easily cost $35,000-$100,000+ per person, just for the necessary permit and guides, and yet the mountain is so crowded you often have to wait in line for hours to get past a choke point. Do you really think going into space will be so dramatically less appealing?

      I agree that I fail to see the appeal of a simple suborbital hop, seems like you should at least get to circle the globe a couple times to really get the impact, but then again for the ticket price you do get to see Earth from a perspective very few ever have (photos are *not* the same thing), get to experience a prolonged stretch of free-fall (better than the vomit-comet at any rate), and have the bragging rights of saying you went to space. Which are probably far more broadly valuable than saying you climbed Mount Everest.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    9. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Oh, and let's put this in proper perspective - there's a lot of people in the world for whom a $250,000 ticket price is only a day or two's wages - I imagine they're the core audience to begin with. I don't know about you, but if I could go on a suborbital hop for even a week's wages I would be seriously tempted.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    10. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you really think going into space will be so dramatically less appealing?

      Yes I do. Once again you are mashing the journey and the destination together. The space joyrides will be a one-shot deal. Once you've seen out the 5 inch porthole for 10 minutes, well so what? You can book a hundred flights on a MiG in Russia and see the same thing.

      Loud videos

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      And you can *fly* the damn thing. I do not get the appeal of being a sardine in a human cannonball stunt.

    11. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. A whole six hundred? And what's the repeat business like? These space stunts are like the Pyramids, the powerful showing their power to each other. So. What.

    12. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Egotism magnified then. I see. You know, all you need to do is take a selfie against the night sky, there's half the universe behind you. Going up a few kilometers doesn't dramatically alter the equation.

      How about a selfie at the bottom of the ocean? Where's the tourist market for that?

    13. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Even assuming they travel to the very upper limit of the stratosphere that's only ~30 miles up. The accepted "edge of space" in contrast is ~60 miles up, and there's no reason a suborbital hop has to stop there. That's going to increase the amount of the Earth's surface that you can see substantially. Yes, you could cruise around in a MiG until you've seen as much of the surface, but getting a larger overview is a qualitatively different experience.

      angular distance from observer to horizon = asec( [radiusE + altitude] / radiusE)
      radius of Earth = 3959mi
      at 30 miles up that's only 7 degrees
      at 60 that's 9.9 degrees (about twice the surface area)
      at 120 miles (still too low for a stable orbit, but probably higher than can be expected for suborbital ) that's 13.9 degrees, or 4x the surface area

      Plus there's the whole free-fall and "I've been to space" component.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    14. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Plus there's the whole free-fall and "I've been to space" component."

      Once. Then what? I mean the Concorde had the "I flew faster than sound" aspect, and it flew somewhere, but even that died. Where is it now?

      And you really think people are going to line up by the thousands to see "4x" of the Earth's surface... for the price of a house?

      I've already seen the Earth from space, I have the Gemini photo album from NASA. From the 60s.

    15. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      By making up a quote that includes the name of a character from 2001, but isn't actually in Kubrick's film at all

      FTFY.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    16. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

      I took a submarine ride down to 800 feet - we two were in the seat at the front with the hemispherical window, and the pilot in the station just below the hatch. Just us three - the sub was tiny. That was pretty cool.

      Also fun was watching the 250 lb. rider from the trip before us try to get out of the round hatch - she was stuck for a few minutes.

      I also learned I have a *small* amount of claustrophobia.

    17. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

      "Plus there's the whole free-fall and "I've been to space" component."

      Once. Then what? I mean the Concorde had the "I flew faster than sound" aspect, and it flew somewhere, but even that died. Where is it now?

      And you really think people are going to line up by the thousands to see "4x" of the Earth's surface... for the price of a house?

      I've already seen the Earth from space, I have the Gemini photo album from NASA. From the 60s.

      I flew on the Concorde. Worth it. If it hadn't died, I'd probably have done a few more trips over the years.

      And yeah, thousands of people *will* pay that amount to go up that high.

      You seem awfully jealous of people who can afford that kind of extravagance. Some of us do have the money. Hell, I'm paying about that kind of cash adding a room to my house... for the indoor pool.

    18. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These flying machines will never take off. Once you've flown once, why do it again? What's the point?

    19. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Oh? Compare the night sky in, say, Los Angeles to that on a mountain in the middle of nowhere on a clear night.

      It's even -better- outside the atmosphere.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    20. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Are you stupid? 600 * $250k = $150 million. That's not chump-change.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    21. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Enough to be worth the price of a house to see it for 10 minutes?

    22. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Climbing Mount Everest can easily cost $35,000-$100,000+ per person, just for the necessary permit and guides, and yet the mountain is so crowded you often have to wait in line for hours to get past a choke point. Do you really think going into space will be so dramatically less appealing?

      Some people think the landfill we're turning Everest into is pretty cool, ya insensitive clod!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    23. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Teancum · · Score: 1

      How about a selfie at the bottom of the ocean? Where's the tourist market for that?

      You mean something like James Cameron at the bottom of the Marianas Trench? There is also a pretty brisk business of people who are trying to get married on the deck of the Titanic.... literally. Note the selfie in that last link in particular.

      There actually is a pretty brisk tourism market for that..... so what are you talking about again? That space tourism won't happen until the underwater deep sea market for tourism is penetrated? Already happened.

    24. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Teancum · · Score: 1

      What Boeing is proposing here is going to be for a little bit longer than 10 minutes.

    25. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Teancum · · Score: 1

      I can only imagine that this sudden rush of PR is due to SpaceX's recent smear of UL for locking them out of the military space market

      How about this was just something positive that the company could say about themselves? You don't need to look into conspiracy theories here, just simply that a bunch of Boeing engineers did something cool and decided to brag about it. That the timing also coincided with some negative publicity certainly could be a good thing for Boeing as well, but frankly they've been doing steady progress with this spacecraft anyway.

    26. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How many times do I have to repeat: you can't mix the vehicle with the destination. People fly to GET TO ANOTHER PLACE, not to sit and come back to exactly the same place half an hour later.

      If all airplanes did was go up for a bit and come right back down to the same place, of course they wouldn't take off!!!

      Jesus but you people are dense. And predictable.

    27. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus but you people are dense. And predictable.

      No, you're just a retard.

      When flying machines were first invented, all people did was 'go up for a bit and come right down to the same place'. Retards like you were saying 'oh, those flying machines are just a fad'.

      Now millions of people fly every day, but retards like you are saying 'oh, those space machines are just a fad' for the same reason as the retards of your grandfather's day.

    28. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      If I could take a ride in a U2 spyplane I'd do it, for that matter.

    29. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. You just proved my point, and you're too thick to see it.

      Let me explain very quickly.

      When the first planes were built, it took less than ten years to go from experimental kite with a home-made engine to war machine.

      The first planes were built by tinkerers in the early 20th century before computers, before good materials knowledge, before we even knew about the neutron or how big the universe really was.

      Now we've measured the Higgs Boson. We know about materials. We have computers.

      And in the half century since we sent people into low Earth orbit, we haven't gone further.

      It's the end, buddy. Private space "tourism" will be a one-time stunt for the ultra-rich to brag about amongst each other.

      Get over it. There's nowhere to go. It's fundamentally different from aircraft in ways I suspect you don't want to believe because that would go against all the sci-fi you've been exposed to as a kid.

    30. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Retard is as retard does. You'll still be claiming 'those space machines will never fly' when our grand-kids are living on the Moon.

    31. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by mattsqz · · Score: 1

      it was closer to 145 years between the montgolfier brothers' balloon and the first commercial passenger airships, and yes balloons are comparable in air travel to rockets for space travel (primitive yet effective technology). it wasnt until shortly after passenger air service became a thing, that aviation advanced dramatically and the airplane came out on top as the primary form of air travel. we are seeing the beginnings of commercial space travel now, which i'd say is about half the time it took aviation to reach a similar level. the innovation from this point on will be exponential (and cost will decrease likewise over decades), just as it was with aviation.

    32. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by mattsqz · · Score: 1

      exactly..this isnt a suborbital virgin galactic toy

    33. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please show me the numbers for this "brisk" market. Oh, your 13 year old story doesn't even say it actually happened, and your "selfie" is "The couple in their other guise as scuba divers".

      So in other words, your "crushing" argument is a 13 year old story that never happened, and hasn't happened since. Jesus fuck you guys are amazing.

    34. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by turgid · · Score: 1

      Some people will pay good money to go up in a balloon for a few hours and drink champagne.

      There is a new class of super-rich oligarchs who are concentrating vast amounts of the world's wealth in their own hands.

      For our own economic survival, we need to take advantage of the "free" market and innovate ways of getting that wealth back into the economy, legitimately.

      What could be better than fostering a high-tech, forward-looking industry of highly educated scientists and engineers to make the toys for these people? It's better than making new ways to kill our foreign brothers and sisters en masse (nuclear and chemical weapons, for example).

      --
      Stick Men
    35. Re:Talk (concepts) is cheap by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      Flying in this plane was definitely about the vehicle, not the destination.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  2. Yes yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure sure. Here's a Boeing concept from the 1960s for a supersonic passenger transporter:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

    Oh, here's a concept for a 1997 Space Hotel:

    http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/2...

    Well? Look out your window. You see any of that? And these ideas come from a time of cheap energy and optimism.

    I wouldn't book my flight to Elon Musk's 3D printed condo on Mars just yet.

  3. Article Summary by McGruber · · Score: 5, Funny

    Article Summary: Boeing's Vaporware includes a blue interior.

    1. Re:Article Summary by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Boeing also shows interiors for its traditional airlines too... However I have never seen any of Boeings customers implement them either.
      It really comes down to cost.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Article Summary by nameer · · Score: 2

      Uh, lots of Boeing customers use the Sky interior.

      More than 85 percent of Boeing's backlog of more than 3,400 Next-Generation 737s and 737 MAXs will be delivered with the Boeing Sky Interior. The Boeing Sky Interior will be standard on the 737 MAX.

      --
      "Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
  4. Designer Drawings Always Look So Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Cost revisions later it's back spam in a can seating.

  5. In other news... by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    In other news, I've just unveiled the interior design of my alpine fortress; it'll be located on a mountain-top in Switzerland (where else?) but will be fitted with pan-dimensional doorways that lead to a Hawaiian beach, a Dallas strip club, a Colorado grow-op and several Thai restaurants).

    1. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oooh, don't forget the 3D printer! Every lair has to have one of those!

  6. So we should expect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So this is what boeing will put on the pamphlets then who ever actually buys the craft will say "I like it but i need you to quadruple the number of seats

    in reality it will be more like this http://s3.amazonaws.com/thumbn...

  7. Boeing is going to put people in space? by arse+maker · · Score: 1

    The company that will do it is most likely spacex. If they manage to make their rockets reusable, there might be no other launch companies left.

    1. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by cavreader · · Score: 1

      If and when SpaceX becomes a stable and above all profitable enterprise there will be plenty of others who will get in the game. SpaceX is just doing the hard work upfront with their R&D and working out how to stream line the operational and safety procedures needed to support such a venture. As long as the government doesn't smother them with regulations and the governments version of standards they should be quite successful in the future.

    2. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

      SpaceX is just doing the hard work upfront with their R&D

      Dear God Almighty, SpaceX is not doing jack-shit R&D. The R&D was done 50 years ago, and documented in extraordinary detail by others.

    3. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Karellen · · Score: 1

      Really? Wow. Could you please provide a link or reference citation to the extraordinarily detailed documents describing the data obtained from the 50+ year-old R&D in flying rocket booster stages back to sea-level for a controlled powered landing, so they can be refuelled and reused with minimal-to-none teardown/rebuilding? Or the 50+ year-old R&D into combining a capsule launch escape system with a means of powered descent and soft-landing on land, removing the need for parachutes (except as emergency backup) or ocean recovery, which could also be used to land on Luna or Mars?

      --
      Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
    4. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

      Now get back to slurping Elon's musky knob, he hates waiting!

    5. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Karellen · · Score: 1

      Cool! Thanks.

      The Volksrocket project does look really fascinating, but there's not much about it. The Wikipedia entry calls it a "planned project", as cited in the linked "Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition"(!) article, and says (uncited) that it was tested through 1991, and reached 34km altitude at burnout (citation Omni article, which is not online, bah!) with no hint that it was capable of in-flight relight or that controlled descent was tested.

      Googling for more info is a bit all over the place. The VolksRocket Project claims 3 successful flights, but has no information on the flights, and says it was powered by 1 AJ-10, contradicting the Wikipedia article which says it used 4 LR101s.

      Are you aware of a better/more direct link to how far they got with the controlled-descent stage of testing?

      --
      Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
    6. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Karellen · · Score: 1

      Although... the VolksRocket project wasn't started until after Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump in Sep '74, making it at least a decade after the GP's "50 years ago" cut-off. If you've got anything else from '64 or earlier, I'd love to see that too.

      --
      Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
    7. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Teancum · · Score: 1

      SpaceX is just doing the hard work upfront with their R&D

      Dear God Almighty, SpaceX is not doing jack-shit R&D. The R&D was done 50 years ago, and documented in extraordinary detail by others.

      I'd like to see the video or for that matter even a classified U.S. Army Air Corps document that has anybody from any country of the world (hell, even the Nazi's at their secret Antarctic base) do something like this 50 years ago:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwwS4YOTbbw

      Seriously?

    8. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody needs a reusable rocket. Just like no one needs a reusable sausage casing. It just needs to do the job once.

      I thought 3D printing was a total game changer and was going to revolutionize everything and we'll be in a post-scarcity society?

      So why would we need to recycle some metal tubes with a few spinny bits in them?

      Launch, trash, 3D print new one?

    9. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody needs a reusable airliner. Just like no one needs a reusable sausage casing. It just needs to do the job once. Why would we need to recycle some metal tubes with a few spinny bits in them?

    10. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      A lot of what SpaceX is doing was not done 50 years ago but more like 30 years ago. Often it was not done before in the US. One example would be the channel wall nozzle used in the Merlin 1D engine.

      SpaceX also does some things which were not done before like the lightweight tanks they use which can keep its shape while empty. The stage design they use is a lot cheaper to manufacture than the stiffened isogrid construction used in the EELVs.

      SpaceX does a lot more R&D than its detractors like to think.

    11. Re:Boeing is going to put people in space? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The stresses that a rocket endures in its 3 minute service life make a jet engine look like an ice-cream maker. Why do you knuckleheads keep comparing incomparable technologies?

      Rockets go straight up to the upper atmosphere. Airliners don't. Etc... You guys are really grasping at straws to try to justify your Star Trek hopes and dreams. Ain't gonna happen.

    12. Re: Boeing is going to put people in space? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Rockets go straight up..."

      Um, no, they don't. Watch any orbital launch and note how soon they start angling over and heading down range.

    13. Re: Boeing is going to put people in space? by kellymcdonald78 · · Score: 1

      SpaceX has been profitable for several years now

  8. Missing some privacy here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because we all know that everyone is going to want to join the hundred mile high club.

  9. Fat passengers by frisket · · Score: 1

    Looks scarily like the passenger facilities in the spaceliner in WALL-E to me...

  10. At least that's taken care of! by scotts13 · · Score: 1

    Now that we know what the decor of the interior will be like, the remainder of actually designing a working spacecraft with a useful mission is trivial. We're almost to Mars! Did anyone note that, in the linked article, they talk about providing passengers with a "large digital display"? You get a video feed, not a window. Is it just me, but does that take away most of the impact of the experience?

    1. Re:At least that's taken care of! by Teancum · · Score: 1

      Did you even read the article? I doubt it, based upon your response here. Most of your questions were answered in that article BTW.

      As for the rest of the actual spaceship, it has already been built... at least the engineering prototypes. The launcher is going to be likely the Atlas V (assuming that the whole issue with Putin can be put to rest so the Russian engines can keep coming for that rocket). That has already done nearly a hundred launches so it is safe to assume it is in pretty good standing. The main problem for the Atlas V is to crew-rate the vehicle, but that is mostly an academic exercise as nobody is going to throw a $10 billion DOD satellite on a rocket like that which isn't damn close to 100% reliability.

      We are talking effing Boeing about being able to build a spaceship? They either built themselves or purchased the companies that built nearly every American spacecraft which has gone into space, including both the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle. You have got to be downright dense in the head to think it is just vaporware here.

      This is stuff that will be built. Bigelow Aerospace is going to use the CST-100 in particular for flights to their private commercial space stations and Boeing may have other customers besides NASA that they don't care to (and certainly aren't legally obligated to) talk about publicly.

    2. Re:At least that's taken care of! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are talking effing Boeing about being able to build a spaceship? They either built themselves or purchased the companies that built nearly every American spacecraft which has gone into space, including both the Saturn V

      Built in the 60s.

      and the Space Shuttle.

      Built in the 70s.

      How many of those engineers are still working there, forty to fifty years later?

    3. Re:At least that's taken care of! by Teancum · · Score: 1

      Built in the 70s.

      How many of those engineers are still working there, forty to fifty years later?

      They did get replacements for those engineers over the years. Ever hear about the Delta IV? It flew into space last month.

  11. But the real cabin... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, the real cabin will look similar in color and style except there will be about 10x as many seats in the same space.

  12. SNC Dream Chaser by Zobeid · · Score: 1

    The article has no mention of any competing ships. Odd omission, isn't it?

    The 2001 reference is particularly off-target here, since Boing are developing a mere capsule while SNC are developing a proper spaceplane. Their Dream Chaser will subject its occupants to much less G-forces during reentry, will have greater cross-range landing capability, and even has hybrid rocket engines on board for on-orbit maneuvering and other uses (such as flying the ship away safely if there's a booster failure). Plus, the Dream Chaser actually looks like a spaceship. What does Boeing have to counter that? Interior decorating!

  13. Squeeze in more seats by Willuz · · Score: 1

    Nope, that's not what it will look like at all. It's microgravity so now they can squeeze passengers in horizontally AND vertically. There are already airlines that charge wide people for two seats. Now tall people will be charged because they take too much head room.

  14. Whereas SpaceX is showing actual crew capsule 5/29 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whereas SpaceX is apparently going to display their actual physical crewed Dragon capsule on May 29.

  15. Less work on flash, more work on rockets by Dereck1701 · · Score: 1

    I think Boeing needs to focus a little more on getting people/materials to space and a little less on the aesthetics of their cabin design. From what I gather the already high costs of their United Launch Alliance rockets for the DoD have increased 60% in the last few years. Some estimates put their launches at $380 Million each not including some of the fixed production/facilities maintenance (~$1B). SpaceX can launch the same payloads in the $56 - 90 Million per launch range.

  16. Give us a break! by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

    If Boeing was interested in getting people into space, more than a handful of them would be there. The fact is that it has taken a company that was outside of the system, with a tiny fraction of Boeing's funding, to make more progress than Boeing has.

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  17. Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    @Boeing - Make the black box last more than 30 days and make it so the pilot can't turn off the transponder on your normal planes then let's talk about space lol.

  18. And you still won't be able to find the USB port.. by herojig · · Score: 1

    or the headphone jack...

    --
    I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
  19. NO MORE JET LAG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And no more 10+ hour flights. Yay!