from back to the beginning of the space program and NASA made them a prime contractor for the ISS over 30 years ago - https://www.britannica.com/explore/space/boeing/

Obviously a different division than their commercial jets.

had sense enough not to mess with a manned space vehicle.

The deteriorating quality of Boeing aircraft is because they got a CEO who worries more about shareholder profits and share prices than he does about making good airplanes.

Sadly, and perhaps cynically, I am suspicious of the timing here, because it smacks of a desperation move by Boeing's C-suite, spurred on by pressure from big hedge fund managers to have a 'win' so share prices will go up again, or at least start an upward trend from the valley they are in now.

The relation between the management of these big publicly traded companies and the hedge fund managers on Wall Street tends to make me sick. Dave Calhoun, Boeing's CEO whose net worth is $57 million, and who is stepping down at the end of this year, will 'earn' $32.8 million, a substantial RAISE from last year's $22.6 million. In spite of his utter failure to address the company's mission is to protect, connect and explore our world and beyond. Every day, we are dedicated to carrying out our mission – safely and sustainably.

Gosh, what great value his excessive greed has added to a once great company.

This is why I like Biden's new stress on unionization. And it is starting to work. Not at Boeing though. Truth is that Bernie is right. We do not need billionaires, and having shareholder profits held by legal doctrine as being more important than workers, consumers and the environment. This is a perfect illustration of the cancerousness of this doctrine and what it looks like on the ground (in the air, in Boeing's case).

They have been at this for some time. I've tried to post updates but they are either ignored or locked.

NASA selected vendors to do these ISS-related missions and the only one that managed to make it that far for crewed missions was SpaceX and its Falcon9/Dragon. Starliner would be another option for getting crew there as we are STILL using Russia's Soyuz vehicles to get some of our crew up and back in between the SpaceX missions.

Blue Origin is working on a replacement station - https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-urine-milestone-nasa-contract-orbital-reef-2024-3 and Boeing was supposed to provide similar services for crew/supply transport that SpaceX is doing.

The United States refuses to have completely government civil service-built craft because "Communist", so this is going to have to be it.

...Boeing & SpaceX. Those contracts were awarded at the same time. The Boeing capsule being used for this launch was used in their first orbital flight test in 2019. They've spent almost 5 years trying to make their system work & they're years behind schedule. Meanwhile, while Boeing has been trying to get their act together, SpaceX has flown 30 ISS cargo missions & 8 crew missions.

A jet liner throwing off parts is one thing. With a spacecraft, it will be quite different.

Someone give the suits at Boeing a T.E.D. talk about a little thing called Quality Assurance. Yes, yes, yes, I know. That costs money. But probably less in the long run than crippling payouts for lawsuits, and the loss of government contracts due to gross incompetence.