Boeing Starliner astronauts are stranded at the International Space Station,
now going on two weeks since they were supposed to
be back on land as engineers work to fix a
series of issues with the spacecraft.
Bank of America senior aerospace and defense analyst Ron Epstein
joins us now.
Ron, thanks for being with us.
First basic question, how long do the astronauts have in
space before this really becomes a problem for them being
stranded up there?
Yeah.
I mean, they they can be up there for quite
some time.
You know, it really is a function of, you know,
what do they have in terms of, you know, food
and water and so on and so forth.
And there's an ability to get more things to the
space station if that's required.
And I mean, ultimately, if they need to send a
rescue boat, they potentially could do that.
I guess we all hope it doesn't come to that.
But they they do have some flexibility here.
When you when you say rescue boat, you know, is
that, does that mean like Elon Musk sending a space
craft up there to rescue, like who sends the rescue
boat to the International Space?
It would be, you'd be the Crew Dragon with SpaceX.
Yeah, going up to get them.
So, you know, the good news is there is an
alternative here.
So if they're there for a while, we can we
can get them home.
Ron, I want to look at the company.
When you look at Boeing, is it too soon to
start to be thinking about breaking up the commercial space
from the defense space business so that this can be
a leaner, meaner, more nimble, focused company?
That that's a, that's a thought that's been a thesis
that's been floated around in the market that, you know,
maybe the company should be broken up because then you
can focus on, you know, running the defense business, which
is distinctly different than the commercial business, which is distinctly
different than the space business.
I don't think we're there yet, but you know, there's
folks in the market talking about that and how you
would do that if, if you think about other companies,
let's use, you know, GE as an example.
I mean, that's exactly what what GE did.
And you're seeing other companies do the same thing, right?
You know, another company we follow RTX that used to
be United Technologies and Raytheon.
And they, you know, they, they United Technologies got rid
of their air conditioner business and their elevator business.
So there's precedent for it in the market, although I
think it's still maybe a little too soon to be
talking about that for Boeing, Ron, their problems are mounting
up as a company.
You've got the Department of Justice probably potentially moving forward
with this criminal lawsuit surrounding safety regulations and why certain
rules weren't adhered to.
You know, should they be focusing more on these aspects
rather than exploring space at the moment?
Your thoughts?
Well, it's, it's a, it's, it's a complicated problem.
It's a complicated company, right?
So they can't just focus on any, any one thing.
So there's a lot of things, as you mentioned right
now that aren't going Boeing's way in terms of aircraft
production.
They need to be focusing on that.
And, and they seem to be, although aircraft deliveries are
behind where anybody would like them to be on the
defense business, they also have some challenges.
And then, you know, there's right now there's challenges in
the space business.
So it's you, you can't, you know, focus on just
any one thing.
You have to focus kind of on all of it.
And then also on September 12th, their biggest union in
Seattle, their contract runs out.
So there's also big labor negotiations going on.
So right now there's a a lot on the table.
Is Boeing then too big to fail?
Well, we've said this and you know, we've written this,
Boeing, I think it's too big to fail, you know
for sure for a lot of reasons, right.
I mean, it's important part of our our national security
industrial base.
It's our one of our largest exporters.
It's one of the biggest players in commercial aerospace, but
it's not too big to be mediocre, right?
So hopefully, you know, we this can be turned around.
You know, it's it's been important industry and you know,
my expectation is, you know, eventually this this can be
turned around.
But right now they are they're definitely in a tough
spot.
Ron Epstein, thank you very much for your analysis.
We appreciate it.