Boeing’s $2 Billion Starliner Nightmare: How SpaceX Saved the Day

Boeing’s Space Woes Keep Piling Up

If Boeing thought 2024 was bad, 2025 just said, “Hold my propellant.” The aerospace giant is now looking at over $2 billion in losses from its troubled Starliner program, a number that just keeps climbing. And the worst part? NASA had to call in SpaceX to rescue the astronauts Starliner failed to bring home.

Boeing initially secured a fixed-price contract worth nearly $5 billion to develop Starliner for NASA, meaning any cost overruns would come straight out of Boeing’s pocket. Guess what? The overruns have been colossal. In 2024 alone, Starliner racked up $523 million in additional losses, making it the program’s most expensive year yet. That’s like burning through five Falcon 9 rockets—without even launching anything useful.

Starliner: A Series of Unfortunate Events

This isn’t just about money; it’s about failure after failure. Here’s how Boeing’s flagship crew vehicle ended up as NASA’s biggest headache:

• June 2024: Starliner’s first crewed mission finally launched after years of delays—only to run into serious propulsion issues.
• Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams made it to the International Space Station (ISS), but there was a catch: Starliner wasn’t safe for a return trip.
• NASA decided to leave the capsule empty, effectively stranding the astronauts on the ISS while they figured out what to do next.

Boeing went from “trusted NASA partner” to “we promise we’ll fix it next time”.

Enter SpaceX: The Real MVP

So, who do you call when Boeing drops the ball? Elon Musk’s space juggernaut, obviously. In September 2024, NASA had to ask SpaceX to send a Crew Dragon spacecraft to pick up Wilmore and Williams.

• Dragon launched on September 28, 2024, with two empty seats—because, you know, someone had to clean up Boeing’s mess.
• Instead of a one-week mission, the astronauts have now spent eight months in space.
• They’re finally scheduled to return to Earth in February 2025

The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.

Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2025

Is This the End for Starliner?

With the program hemorrhaging money and still not fully operational, what happens next? Neither NASA nor Boeing has announced a fix for Starliner’s propulsion issues, and there are rumors Boeing might be looking to offload some of its struggling space assets. Could Starliner be on the chopping block?

For now, all eyes are on February 2025, when SpaceX brings home the astronauts Boeing left behind. If that doesn’t signal a changing of the guard in human spaceflight, what does?