Boeing got nearly twice the funding for a conservative, unimaginative Apollo capsule

What's wrong with a "conservative unimaginative" design? This wasn't intended to be a beauty contest or to provide geek stroke material, it's a contract for workaday vehicles and services. And as for costs, you've got to remember the difference between the vehicles - SpaceX bid a derivative of an existing craft (I.E. with a lot of the development already paid for), while Boeing bid a new design. Comparing straight up dollars is not comparing like-to-like.

SpaceX will make $2.6 Billion do way cooler stuff than $4.2 Billion to Boeing. SpaceX is a young, hungry company that is on the forefront of multiple industries. Boeing, while still a great company, is older an no doubt bogged down in more levels of bureaucracy.

There's another factor that everyone is ignoring - SpaceX is proposing a craft that's a modification of an existing vehicle and which is also expected to be subsidized by commercial use. Boeing on the other hand is proposing a craft that's clean-sheet new and has no other customers.

The fact that to deliver the same development and certification process costs $1.6 billion less for SpaceX over Boeing is also interesting.

It's not the same development and certification process - as SpaceX will be flying a modification of an existing (certified) spacecraft, while Boeing's is a new and unflown design.

Given that Boeing will already be 3 years late to the party, when SpaceX has manned capability up and running this coming January?

The mixed tense of the latter half of the sentence aside... The January test is that of a flight abort, not a qualification or validation flight. (And thus does not represent "manned capability".) The first full-up unmanned flight test isn't manifested until 2016 and no manned flight is currently manifested.
 

We're supposed to wait another couple of years for manned launch capability

We're *already* waiting at least a year and half for the first unmanned test flight - with the first manned test flight currently unscheduled (but at least a year after the first unmanned test flight according to the original projections). Your argument that Boeing will be "late to the party" and that "we must wait" is thus not based on reality.

BTW, I agree with you in regards to Dreamchaser. It is a good enough vehicle that the ESA is even looking at using it, and Sierra Nevada is already on record saying they will continue the development of this vehicle even without additional development money from NASA.

The ESA "looks at" all kinds of things (they even "looked at" the one time darling of the space fanbois - Kliper), and such is about as meaningful as a celebrity endorsement. And going on record as intending to do something you don't have the money to do is equally meaningless.
 

Indeed the only company that has said they will stop any further development if their vehicle isn't selected is Boeing.

Except for the nit-picky fact that they've said nothing of the sort.

That made me actually laugh out loud. :)

Boeing vs SpaceX? without doing all the number crunching it is hard to make an educated judgment.

This is Slashdot. This isn't about educated judgements, number crunching, or reasoned discussion. This is all about geek fanboyism and that all contracts are awarded solely on the amount slipped under the table being an article of faith.

Other than that, you're absolutely correct - Dragon and (especially) Dreamchaser represent fairly risky designs. Boeing presents a largely conventional alternative. This matters a great deal in the technical evaluation of the proposals, and contrary to popular belief such evaluations play a large role in determining who is awarded such contracts. It's not, by a long shot, just about who offers the least expensive option.

I've seen lots of stuff about what SpaceX is doing, but not a lot about Boeing on the space front these days.

If that's true, then you badly need to re-think where you get your space news. (Slashdot and other popular sites tends to disproportionately worship SpaceX.) I only casually follow and *I* knew about Boeing.
 

So, is this something which actually exists and is being tested? Or is this vapor ware?

It's something that actually exists and is actually being worked on.

It's funny... you keep using the subjective word "successful" to imply reaching an objective goal. And all without providing any links to back up your subjective claims.

Really? Asking for actual evidence rather than handwaving indicates that I "clearly don't want to believe"? That's about the most ignorant and stupid thing I've ever heard.

So many US Soldiers spend all their free time playing video games. (source: was in the US Army for 4 years)

Nothing new. Back when I was in the Navy (onboard an SSBN) in the 80's, it was movies or playing cards or zoning out with a cassette player and a set of headphones for most of the crew.
 

Excuse me? Reading for pleasure is one of those things that opens up your mind to new possibilities, that is a window into a new world, that doesn't result in the brainrot of modern TV programming.

Excuse me? Horseshit. It depends greatly on *what* you read. I'd guess that 90% of the readers on the boat read male romance novels - I.E. cheap westerns, Mac Bolan (and his spin-offs and clones), low rent spy thrillers, and dozen other kinds of complete tripe. Not all reading "opens your mind" or "doesn't result in brainrot". There's a lot of pure crap out there right on the same level as TV programming, and there has been ever since books became available to the masses.

. And at war time, reading books would have been a luxury both at home and at the battlefield. So selling them at the cost of production or at lost is more likely investing for the future loyalty of customers.

There's also the marketing angle - every company that contributed in even the smallest way to the war effort made damm sure to trumpet it in their advertising and promotional materials, both during the war and for a period after.

Germany is well on the way to doing this on the scale of a whole country.

Sure... if you squint hard enough and tilt your head at the right angle and ignore the 75% of their energy that doesn't come from renewables. Otherwise, not so much. It remains to be seen how far that number can be pushed.

So the truth is flamebait now?

All of the recent articles about autonomous cars seem to be trying to make people think they're terrible will never work and are a disaster waiting to happen.

I don't blame google for not wanting to publish all the details about it, its a research project and the media seems to have an agenda to make autonomous cars into the boogeyman.

No, not so much. The recent articles are more in response to the numerous [Google press release based] articles with headlines like "Autonomous car drives 10,000 miles safely!". So, yeah, I do blame Google for not publishing the full truth, choosing instead in favor of spin and hype. It's not a media agenda, or a conspiracy, it's called balance and investigative journalism. (Something everyone here routinely calls for - right until the spotlight hits their fandom. Then it's an "agenda" and a "conspiracy".)