I never would have dreamed that I'd have so many positive positions on Starliner, of all things. I'm a pretty massive SpaceX fanboy, if I'm being honest with myself. And yet here I am. Another market, another 1K+ mana on "yeah, it'll be fine."

Leaks of all sorts are super common throughout the history of spaceflight. They'll deal with them. The thruster issues will take some reanalysis, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're ultimately "fixed" in software.

The delay in leaving the ISS is perfectly normal, and isn't the dire sign that people think it is. They're going to ditch the service module on the way home, so this is their best chance to really understand the thruster issue. Plus, run-of-the-mill scheduling stuff. They don't want Starliner operations to conflict with other station tasks such as EVAs.

The astronauts themselves are never in a hurry to return home. They've spents years on the ground training in order to have this opportunity to go to space. Any excuse to stay longer will always be fine by them.

The rest of this trip will most likely be fine. Not necessarily trouble-free, but fine. There's a lot redundancy and margin baked in for manned spacecraft. And so too for the next trip. Will be delayed, for sure, but fine. Because they'll be suitably cautious.

The biggest issue is that it's a money loser, and Boeing may not want to keep paying for more engineering work on it. If any if my bets go against me, it'll be due to Boeing pulling the plug.

I basically agree with you, but there's a lot of differing opinions on the whole thing so it seemed like am interesting market. I like that we can bet on our opinions like this rather than just debate.

As for Boeing pulling the plug, is that an actual option? Doesn't that incur hefty contract breaking penalties?

I'm a little curious about the contract details, but not so curious as to go looking for answers. My assumption is that most details would be redacted even if it was FOIA'd.

I've generally heard that Boeing is paid as the missions fly, so if they consider all the development work to be a sunk cost, then it's still "profitable" for them to put in the operational work and do the missions.

How does this resolve if it never launches again?

Good question. Let's say that if the program is officially canceled then it resolves No.