Why Starliner won't go to Space today (or why development methodology is important)
A few years back there was a race between Boeing's Starliner and Space's Crew Dragon to capture the American flag on the International Space Station (ISS). The two companies were viewed as neck and neck in the race and yet Spacex retrieved the flag 3 years ago and Boeing aren't likely to launch human until next year. Why? With the various failures of OFT-1 (Starliner's first test flight), Nasa declared a 'close call event'. During the resulting press conference Nasa had admitted they thought Boeing would do everything the Nasa way and hadn't paid much attention. Nasa quietly admitted to being shocked Boeing didn't have a System Engineering Management Plan (SEMP). There are lots of methodologies for designing and developing a system. Each of these approaches have their strengths and weaknesses and all of them rely on various gates to monitor and control the development of a product. When following Waterfall, the gates and controls are placed at phase tra...